KENNEBEC • A PORTFOLIO OF MAINE WRITING

Vol VIII -1984

Published by

University of Maine-Augusta

Union Station: Portland

TilE boy liked the idea of stopping. His mother and father in the front seat ex­ "Pull over," the old man said. changed a look, though. They were riding along St. John Street and had just In the front they _exchanged another look. The mother gave a tiny nod. The cr·ossed Congress. It was a beautiful, crisp, October day . fa ther sighed and put his blinker on. He parked in front of the three-story brick "Pu ll it over," the boy's grandfather said again. He was looki ng at the demolition building that had been the business offices fur the railroad. It was a block away going on. His finger shook a little as he pointed past his grandson's nose a1 the old from w here the work was happening. It was an empty block because all the train station being knocked down. "Pull it over," he said querulously. other buildings were already gone. The business offices were still in use, though. "Yeah!" the ten-year-old boy said. The boy's father got out and unlocked the trunk. He moved the suitcase a little As they watched there was a crash that spanked a cloud of dust into the air. to get room to lift the wheelchair out. Then he unfolded the chair, pushed it up to "There goes the tower!" the boy said happily . He and the old man stared as they the car door and lucked its wheels. He and his wife strained to help the old man went by. The crane was turning away, carrying the heavy black ball at the end of from the back seat. They looked at each other ove•· his bent back. When he was a cable, gathering distance for another attack on the stone wall s. "I wonder if any out they moved him to one side so the door cou ld be shut. He stood unsteadily of those clocks won't break?" the boy said. beside the car, holding onto it , his white hail- uncombed and cowlicked, like the His father, driving, was looking too, in spite of himself. He didn't want to stop, boy's. He looked back at the train station coming down. though. He wanted to get out there and get it over with. He looked past his wife "Can I push?" said the boy, putting his hands on the handles. as the ba ll struck the building again. More stone fell but not so impressively as "I don't think so," his father said. when the tower with the clocks had fallen . "Those clocks are smashed all to hell," "Oh, let him, John," the boy's mother. said. "It's good that he wants to." he answered his son. The old man ignored them, watching the demolition, his head nodding with the John sighed and moved. He looked at his wife. She held her hands apart, palms effort of standing. up. ttl can push him," the boy insisted. When John said it was time to go the old man didn't protest. His grandson "All right then." John touched the old man's arm. "Come on, Pop. Sit down and pushed him back to the car. He wasn't limber enough to turn and look back at the we'll go over and take a look." demolition, so he kept his eyes straight ahead, his hands holding onto the arms of He didn't take his eyes off the train station while they hacked him up and sat the chair, the metal beneath the bright green padding sparkling under his dry old him on the canvas seat of the chair. He ignored, too, the traffic although it passed spotted hands. The sun was high in the sky now. It was warmer, but there was dau~ter~in~law fast and near, and made hls son and nervous. "Watch the cars1 still that crispness in the air. John always thought of it as football weather. That's now;• John told the boy. what he was thinking as they walked back toward the car. Behind him he could 1 "Ready, Gramp?" hear the sound the chair's rubber wheels made in the bricks. "Take me Gver there/' the thifl, old voice said. He struggled to get the chair to fit back in the trunk with the old man's suitcase. There was a break in the curb where there had been a driveway to one of the John slammed the trunk lid shut. He felt the hreeze on his damp forehead walk­ torn-down buildings. '!'he boy pushed hard, got some momentum up, and rolled ing back to get in to the car. Then they were underway again. They drove onto the wheelchair onto the brick sidewalk. The four of them went along the side­ the bridge and crossed the river with everyone being quiet exc'ept the boy, who walk and stopped a hundred yards from what was left of the old stone building. chattered and pointed out an old barge moving heavily. It was noisy with the loaders and dumptrucks working at the far end of the Coming back it was late afternoon. The sun slanted into the trees on one side of building. The loaders were scoop[ng up the stone fragments, hanging their the highway. The other side was in shadows. It was getting dark earlier these blades on the sides of the dumptrucks, the loads crashing in and shaking the days. trucks. Middle-aged men in T-shirts set in the durnptrucks, their arms out the John and his wife were quiet in the front, tired from the strain. The boy had ""'indows. At the near end the crane was pivoting to swing the ball into the waJL been quiet, too. He was alone in the back. They left the highway and took the When the ball struck, it seemed to pause on contact and then to push slowing ramp to the bridge. into the stone, the sound thick and muffled. The ball dangled in slow motior. at "Gramp wasn't happy," the boy said. the end of the cable as the fragments felL They were on the bridge, re-crossing the river. On the right were the tank "~eat~" the boy said. farms where the tankers unloaded. His grandfather sat silently watching, leaning forward in the wheelchair. The "He'll be happy once he gets used to it," John said. "He just has to get used to it." boy's father had walked a little away and was leaning against a light pole with his "He'll make a lot of new friends, Tommy," the boy's mother said. She smiled arms crossed, looking sadly at the ol_d man. His wife came over. tiredly at him over the seat back. "What timing," John said to her, shaking his head. '"You can come with us when we visit," John told the hoy. She laughed a little. "Of all the days." ..'\:Ve'll visit lots," Mary said. "1 didn't know they were knocking it dovvn today," John sa~d. "He \Vasn't very happy," Tommy said, 1'He didn't even want to unpack his suit­ They were keeping their voices low even though the old man didn't hear well case. l thought you said he'd be happier there." His attention was drawn hy the any more. Besides, there was the noise. But they spoke quietly, anyWay. tanker sitting low in the water, waiting to unload. Then they were by it Tommy "It's a shame, such a nice old building," the woman said. "It's too bad they looked out the back windshield for a moment before turning around. couldn't find some other use for it.'' "He will once he gets used to it," John said. "lt was a nice old building," John said. "But whal are you going to do v.rhen They left the bridge, went down the ramp and were on St. John Street. They there arent any more trains?" He sighed. "1 guess they figure we need a depart~ went past the tire place and the brick office-building and stopped at the red light ment store." at Congress. Waiting for the light to change they looked at the darkened lot The dumptrucks, fully loaded, were rumbling out of the lot onto St. John where the old train station had stood. The crane was gone and so were the Street. The loaders were quiet. But the crane was still swinging the ball into the loaders and dump! rucks. The building was gone except for a stone outline close ruins of the statlon. to the ground. "Did you read the editorials last night?" the woman said. "It's all gone!" Tommy said. "Except that little bit." "Nope.'' · "They'll get the rest of it with jackhammers," John said. "There was a pretty good one about what a shame it was to tear down Union "It sure came down easily/' Mary said. "It is kind of a shame, isn't it John?" Station for a department store when lhere are already so many department "Yeah, it is," John said. "It was quite a building in its time." stores around and only one Union Station,'' The light turned green and John put the car in gear and stepped on the gas. John looked at her and shrugged sympathetically. They moved across the intersection. It was dark enough that headlights were "They said it bad dignity," she said. "History, too. History and dignity. TI1ey said coming on. John reached and put his coat on. He would have had to before they that's two things you don't find in a department store/1 got home, anyway, and this way he'd be sure nut to forget. "! thought they sold everything there," John said. She laughed perfunctorily but neither of them was much in the mood for jok­ ..Jim Nichols ing. She put her hands in the pockets of her jeans, turning to look at the old man. Rockland "He sure loved the place," she said. 1 . 'Yeah. Did you know that picture ove·r the mantle was taken here'?'' "The one with the football teamr "Uh-buh." "I didn't," she said. "You can't see much except for the people." Evening Theatre "They had just won some kind of a championship. High School. They came back by train and the whole town was here to meet them." My daughter plays evening actress: · "It's hard to imagine him playing football, isn't it?" her clothes thrown sideways across the dining room, "I guess he was pretty good." she runs to my chair for a hug. snuggle and capture ,.hey heard the old man coughing and John called to his son to bring the chair inside my o/'daddy shirt. back. "It's too dusty for you up there, Pop." "Daddy, Gramp used to work for the railroad, didn't he?" the boy said. So natural on the stage! her legs aligned ''For a long time," John said. He bent and said to the old man, ''Show him your with my legs, her knees on my large knees, watch, Pop." her feet like little triangles, her toes The old mao ignored him, and John straightened, telling the boy about the in­ unwrinkling and wrinkling. In mock surprise, I say, scription on the watch. "They gave it to him when he retired," he explained to the boy. He walked around the front of the wheelchair. "! wish you'd talk, Pop. The 'You've lost your clothes!' Her shoulders lift. only thing you've said all day was, 'pull over'." He stood with his hands on his her hands lift, flat with their palms upturned. hips, waiting, but there was no reply. "VVe've given it a year/ Pop. It's just not 'Clothes gone,' she says, her whole self involved in the shrug working.'~ In evening theatre I pull my shirt"front tight. Behind them the ball struck and a large, flat section of wall collapsed. Dust rose. They all looked over at the sound. John looked back at his father. He squat· the evening actress caught inside it with me. She ted with his hand on the arm of the wheelchair, and lowered his voice. "What if was a dream for a long time, and I couidn 't have her: you fell, Pop?" he said. "You're too heavy for Mary. You're just too heavy for her happiness to hold her where my heart beats to support, and you won't exercise so your legs just get worse and worse and it like a sudden angel fresh from the wings. takes more and more help to get you fr·om one room to another:' He said it wearily, !Irian Fitzgerald not expecting to get anywhere. They had been through all this before. It had Presque Isle been all downhill since John's mother had died. Audra waits at the empty desk for a few minutes and passes time looking Audra in Motion through ~ dictionary for the word paranoid. She has always thought she knew what the \Vord meant, hut now she is nut so sure. It was just like this person to Audra is on the move. Today she has heard that someone in the office claims use a word like that. Showing off. There - paranoid - characterized by suspi­ she is paranoid- paranoid and a traitor. She thinks she knows who said it, hut ciousness, persecutory trends, or megalomania. Well, she didn't think that she

she honestly doesn't know why. Although, if you asked most people in the office, was suspicious, she certainly didn't persecute people and megalomania1 well that they probably could tell you -and probably would say that the statement, accu­ always meant someone like Hitler. None of that applies to her. And she dismisses sation, as Audra would term it, was a pretty fair one. it all quickly, deciding to emphasize the other word, traitor. For if she was a So Audra is right now literally moving through the office. It is one of those gov­ traitor by going to work for someone else; well, then, that was tough! ernment offices where _everything is out in the open. Desks and partitions plus Audra puts the dictionary back on the desk, carefully placing it in the exact one glassed-in corner for the office director so that he can be on display as a sym­ space from where she took it. Then she begins to make another full circuit of the bol of motivation and keep an eye on all employees at the same time. Most people office. She will stop at her desk for a few minutes to see if there are any mes­ do not care for the arrangement, but Audra likes it, mainly because she can hear sages. By that time her enemy will probably have returned. There is a message everything that is going on. If anyone ever desires a confidential meeting, they from her son. She is to call home. She does not want to do that. Her son is such a have to either go into the conference room, which has to be reserved in advance prohlem. He is 21, not in school and without a job. He does not like to work. So he with the director's secretary, or find someplace outside the office. Most people keeps her husband company. He is also an informer for the county police concern­ are too lazy to go to so much trouble and instead say whatever they please about ing drugs. In a way she hates to think of her hoy as a stool pigeon. But it does most everyone and everything. The whole idea is German- comes from German bring in money. She is sure someone will get him sometime - that or the house engineers, Audra remembers. Of course, now that it is her name that is bouncing will get firebombed. She knows there is something wrong. She will wait to calL from partition to partition, she does not think the office set-up is quite as neat as She must finish this busjness about who is or is not a traitor. she did before. . Audra is not quite as mad as she was when she first learned what had been Audra is 55 and feeling much older than she ought to feeL It is all this tension said. She stands by her desk trying to hear what is being discussed inside the that she causes - that she brings into the office with her. Most people can sense director's office which is across from where she sits. Her phone rings. She must the tension and stand back when they can. They attribute most of it to the fact answer it. It is her son. He wains to tell her that her husband fell out of his wheel­ that Audra's husband is dying of an incurable disease. He has been dying for chair and hit his head. But don't worry. He's okay. Just a minor scrape. Does she years, and it seems that he will be'l dying for many more years - that he will want him to take anything out of the frig to defrost for dinner. Audra is relieved. never finally die and be at peace, only always he at the excruciating point of near Her husband falls fr~om wheelchair: at least once a week. Chicken is probably the death. So it is this death-tension that accompanies Audra everywhere she goes best thing for dinner. He's really a good boy. Better than a maid. No, she does nul that turns off people. People nut familiar with her problems just think that she's a want to talk to her husband. She hangs up and sits staring out the window at the hitch and extremely aggressive. Audra wishes they all could experience what Washington skyline. She can barely see the Mall, the dome of the Capitol build­ she's going through now. Could they handle it? What would they do? ing, hut actually she sees nothing. Audra is thinking. She has forgotten paranoid Audra is still an attractive woman. She has kept her whitening hair its actual and traitor. It does not seem so important anymore. She wishes her husba·nd· blonde color and done what is possible to ease the lines in her face. Her eyes are would hurry up and die and let her get on with her life again. She is feeling very, still a youthful blue, and she takes care with her clothing. Granted her dress size very sorry for herself. sUddenly she senses someone near her, actually standing has swelled to three sizes larger than 10 years ago, hut she feels she is not so bad in front of her desk. She looks up quickly, and there is the enemy. The very one. - not really. She has not had sex in over five years and she believes this lack is "Someone said you were looking for me, Audra," the enemy asks in what Audra turning her into an uncontrollable voyeur. In her car pool and in the office she believes to he a much too nice voice. listens to all the talk of who is dating wh0111 1 who is sleep~ng_with whom and cannot But Audra is caught off gua1·d. She has forgotten exactly what she was going to stop from trying to force herself into such conversations since the vicarious sen­ say. She hates to he unprepared. She would like a confrontation but on her own sations of listening to others describe sexual encounters helps- helps more than terms and not sitting dmvn with her enemy towering over her. She must act anyone can know. But most people are nut receptive to her intrusions. And she quickly, must say the right thing. can understand that - she wou!d not have appreciated such an invasion into her But the phone rings. It is her son again. He is talking incoherently. The enemy own private life as it had been years ago. But now she would. She would like to fades away. talk and talk of the hollow feeling that she, Audra, the celibate, is experiencing. "He's dead," her son final~ says. "Dad's dead." But- no one wants to talk to her. They are tired of her problems. So instead she Audra holds the phone receiver tightly in her hand, staring at it and realizing does find people \Vho will talk of themselves and getting ahead in the office - only one thing. That she is not ready for this. She never has been- never will he. how to betray others so that you may grab a promotion. Audra would love a pro­ motion. Jt is the least God could do for her. Take her husband and give her a pro­ C. Walker Mattson motion - maybe throw in a new man to hoot. Troy Audra speaks to people as she moves through the office. Some nod, some smile, some say hello and ask how she is. She feels that they are all liars and hate her. Hate her because they are afraid she is after their jobs and that they might have to offer sympathy about her dying husband. Yet, she seems to make friends eas­ ily. It is the keeping of these friends that has proven so impossible. She has never seemed to comJwehend the simple fact that friendship involves lovaltv and that you do not slander a friend and then turn around and expect th~t friend to he the older cashier lady there smiling. But that's what she does. Audra feels, especially in an office, that doing that kind of thing is wheeling and dealing. at woolworth 's Audra is loud and speaks with a true Texas accent. She has heard that someone in the office has said that is her problem - that she is from Tex - ass, as she we're both almost finished­ understands it was so crudely put. Well, she is proud of being a Texan. Yet, she the store & me - never wants to go back there. Doesn't believe that she could get along with those people don't go so much for notions now. hack ward kind of people anymore. Although, it does hot her her that she could he i'm just filling out my time criticized for being a Texan. She thinks she knows who said that too - not the & taking a lot of vacations. same one who has made the most recent comments, no, someone different who my husband's retired already obviously knows nothing about Texas. & doesn't like to drive. he'd sit home all day & watch the soaps, Audra is now appr'Oaching a corner of the office filled with a partition and an but i made him try those cross-country bus trips, empty desk. This is it. This will be her battleground. She is quite sure that this is get out to see the world. where those words -paranoid, traitor- originated. Audra will have a confron­ he wondered how he could fall asleep on a bus, tation. She is good at that. She can be like steel, verbiage bouncing from her, stand­ but he found he could doze ing h~r ground and giving her foe the icy stare that has been said to wither the as comfortable as he could ever drop off most seasoned bureaucrat. She wiJJ demand first, an explanation and, then, an in his easy chair at home; apology. She believes that this has been going on for some time, this kind of talk­ & i don't like to travel alone. ing behind her hack by this person. Oh1 Audra had been gleaning hits and pieces from here and there. All fragments, finally becoming whole. Jealousy the main Grtte Goodwin cause, jealousy of her political acumen, her connections, her handling of complex Cape Neddick office problems. Despair the lesser cause, despak because Audra had chosen not to wm·k for this person who never had fully utilized Audra's capability of dealing with people - who refused to give Audra a promotion. Snakehead, The Deuce

(From work in progress)

Little sister Persia's lighthearted, cuz the Deuce ain't shown his face on the sidewalks of West End for a thankful long time. She's back to singing something other than blues and hums skippy jazz notes while she's putting the last pats on her paper mache puppets. I hear her sing like that and my whole world goes yellow, green and white, with P"-rpl~ balloons rising, and all my seven children gather around and watch her with me, all of us crouched together, entwined sweaty The Bullhorn Messiah good. Persia's hips and shoulders curve with the notes and her hands come down on the cheeks of her puppet, shaping them full as apples, pressing dimples in for innocence, twisting the little pale lips Twice now he has warned them of Armageddon. to make them knowing. Ain't nothing in the world like Persia when But this third warning is " . .. the real thing!" she's feeling free. His hand twists the air & flails the light, I'm feeling so sunnyday for her, I tell her all I'm thinking, about the pounding the great taffy-sky, pink over the City. Deuce, about her breezy singing, even my own part about the purple He again has the attention of us all. balloons. She goes silent, shutting the tune inside her wiry little body of a sudden, yet all the time her hands keep working like a d er­ He spews the white confected words, fancy, vish over the face and scalp of the puppet head. but hard as chunks from a real Utrillo wall, I can tell my little sister's about ready to have a deep blue sigh, and out over the crowd convincing them a ll I'm weighing myself down with regret for ever having mentioned not really needing-the horn he waves, the Deuce's name. My purple balloons let wind and spew themselves an open jaw of an ass, dead but for his mouth. out to a shrivel. Just as I predict, she sighs, and oh it's a dark one. They are on their way to work, at lunch, or going home "Yeah, but Minerva, this puppet here, now he's turning into the The nuclear bundle in his hand calls them, Deuce. See?" treats them by name & he swears they are all known, She holds it up and damned if she ain't right. The cheeks that natures for lordly use not for evil meaning. seemed so round a moment ago are flat and tired as wilted lettuce, He bores a few, the few whose stop is furthest out . and the lips look plain· snide, no joy in them at all. "What's that disgusting stuff all over his head, then?" The Deuce is But there is old Chaplin leaning on his cane balding, ain't got much left up in that region. & Mr. Solzhenitsyn beside him . One thinks "Snakes. The puppet's name is Snakehead." that man is God's humor & the other thinks Persia runs her finger along one of the twisting white serpents man is mush of personal hysteria real slow and moans a bluesy phrase that makes me shiver. My fault. tugging at us all with history & fear. But that's how quick little sister Persia's moods changer just like the damned traffic lights outside my bedroom window. They listen to the bullhorn & watch it fling "What the devil can you do with a headful of snakes?" acrobatic words spilling upon them, Persia aims me one of her scare-glares. "You can stun people. You raining on thirsting slugs, no more objects can turn them into stone." of rain than meanings of words, "Well, how the hell is that going to iit into one of your shows?" By but each drop, word, tugging, washing over them both, this time I'm shooing the children out of the door. This is dangerous talk, don't want any of them to be harmed. They're all of impres· taking a little bit of both fu rther along_ sionable age, and ain't we all? The bullhorn points at the pimp Wash Flute Persia's seeming more small and dark than usual in her corner as he squats on the brick like a drought-farmer away from the skylight. "I'm g oing to use it somehow," she answers waiting with the strength of a coiled chain. me, her voice too quiet, leaving me uneasy . "I've got a parody devel­ " Bullhorn," he says, " makes it sound too easy . . ."' oping on the Medusa theme. Only this time, Medusa is a man, and he's born ugly." · " ... going to the Mountain ain't like going to the john." "Yeah, well, I remember that story," I s ay, uncertain. & a few of us laugh though Flute's not smiling. "Then you'll see the conne ction," P e r s ia s ays, lifting one of her e ye­ It is said that with imagination a man brows, little owl. Too damne d well-re~d for her own peace of mind, I chooses either to expand his circumference or center, think. She can't be carefree for long. Now m e , I'm a free spirit .and two convergent circles that detect a iconic face. work hard at it, for the good of m y kids, some thing I learned r eal e ar­ ly on. There is mother- Escher with her hands on her hips, "I better see to the chickens," I say. her elbows like knotholes stabbing the parish air, "See to your chickens, then,' she answers, turning back to her her hair swallowed in a snood of spiders' web head ful of snakes. She ain't singing nothing, at least not till I go. I swept from some house she's been cleaning. ticked her off, I guess, for not knowing what she's aiming at with Linked to her chest is a chain of paper-clips that Snake head of hers. Whate ver it is, though, it sure fits the Deuce. Nobody else can tell a lie with such fooling charm. & under her bottom lip a plug of tobacco. "Persia," I say, one foot out the door, r e ady to split. H er ironing board leans against her, a canvassed shield "Yo," she calls, not turning around. · she'll carry down the street where for a token price "One thing . .. " (six shirts ironed & folded) center the Blue Line "Yo." thinking of her beloved John whose laugh was lost on Luzon. "Don't be turning me or my chicke ns into stone, or any neighbor­ hood folks." Bullhorn drubs a code upon each ear 1 scoot, then, quick enough to miss the blob of gummy paper I & like sleet upon .a window sill, familiar know she'll be hurling my way. I le t the door to the studio slam cold memories that always melt in the light, behind me while I catch my laughing breath on the fire escape land­ castigating hope where once love took daily flight ing . Down below, my chickens are in the midst of a dusty squabble. Twice now he has warned them of Armageddon. Damn it, but I love them when they're all wiggling at once. Bunch of busy ants. They keep my world in motion. (end of prelude to 'The Broken Mouth")

Glenn Avery Cathy Counts Tresc:ott Portland ~ . . . . •. ' i 2 a ~ :. ·. • i"~~;~f I • • t I } J''' f t - • ~1 ! 2 . .. .. • ·: ~ • ...... Counting the Loons

Leaving the suburbs, heading north, Off to our left, what looks of the world, there is nothing - the land stops being so flat. like a broken limb, bobs only, roused by our wake, Bent cans and broken porcupines too far away. As quietly as we can in the six inches between sand and air, tarnish the road for a while, with our city skills, we follow, the squirming red bellies of bloodsuckers then disappear. The road itself not wishing to scare it, not trying caresses the sides of hills, to get too close. Only once winds through forests of tall spruce, the thoomp of paddle on fiberglass, The land holds us. With a rush juts left, climbs out of the volley, loud as a nightmare, ruffles the lake. the sun and mosquitoes discover our flesh. showing the mountain behind us - Paddles reversed, we push through weeds. sharp cliff slanted in sunlight - The second loon we see only now Brambles challenge us from the shore. a challenge for which we are not yet ready. as it angles towards the outlet, Our friend is not to be found. The loons At the crest of the next hill on unexpected twin from the mother's womb. will remain secret, uncounted by census. we drop to a small lake, at the foot We stay with the first, lured by its speed, There is nothing to do but go back. of a small mountain. It is the day the thrill of the chase, dark hungers. Then, as we turn, we see for counting the loons. And yet we are casual- boards from an old dock, the two loons moving so smoothly dragged down by winter, blown here As gently as fog lifts, the canoe as tips of a widening V, by a storm. Not what we came for, slides from our dock into the water. ourselves a red crescent moon but something to use -for building, Midweek - and the paddles slipping through waves, repairs to the camp - something we need. with their dip, dip & J, dip, dip & J, weaponless, intending no harm. We leave the canoe, loop a line have nothing to fear The second loon we watch till its black spot, from a low branch, lift long, rough, from buzzards or motor boats. like a dream we have forgotten, moss-covered wood from the brush. The loons, we suspect, ore south, merges with underbrush on the far shore. With bloodsuckers and rusty nails out of the cove, nearer the inlet. By now we know we were wrong. Our loon attacking our feet, we stack five boards We have seen two, then none, will show us nothing, will take us nowhere. on the gunnels, balance them delicately, and are told that this week Never too far in front, never too close, and head home - like a loon ourselves now, the chicks will f ollow their parents it leads our parade in perfect balance, dark wings spread over the sparkling water. out of the underbrush black baton of a beak held high into the lake. as we near land. When we wake the next morning, apple pancakes steam on the table, Under the bow Ahead of us as we round the point, a white shape the fallen tree, covered with birds, mist rises from the lake, unveiling looms and glides past: an ice box surrounded by clam shells and trout one by one the tip of the canoe, the dock, jettisoned with the coming of bottled gas. lies like an island, ugly but fertile, ' the gentle surge of the day 's first waves We wish we could haul it out, a birthmark bristling with hair. marking the progress of six black specks- make use of it, bring it to life. Our loon, shifting its course just slightly, four small, two large- bobbing, ducking, You tell me that next to it is a couch steams past it like a frigate. then as they approach, more stately, with a broken back. I can see nothing - Seconds later we follow, and find nothing, closely ranked, proud in their morning coats, as the .shoreline shrinks, images on the bottom fade. not even a loon's laugh to let us know come to return our call. It is a day Only now and then the arm of a great beast we are fooled. The shore teems wUh hideouts. for learning again old proprieties, reaches up -shadowy , intent on nothing, We drift, patiently, waiting f or sound or motion f or visiting neighbors, f or building, waving its remnants of hands. but there is nothing. In all this corner ' f or climbing small mountains.

John Rosenwald Beloit, W~onsl n 11 lt's sad for her. It's goin.g to be so hard." 11 Joy, please, not here." Stardust Rain "Okay, I'll shut up, I'll be good. We'll just dance like this, like good little bourgeois puritans, and talk about nothing. Wouldn't Daddy be proud?" Was this song going to last forever? "So he's running for school ifrom Growins Pains, a novel) board now." She grinned. 11 0h, yes, and he's never lost an election. A born politi­ cian." "Terrific." To let Joy meet his wife was suicide, Ted Wharton thought, but She sniffed. '10h Bear, forget about him. By election time we'll be what to do? The old slipped disc routine would merely keep him off married and living at Aubrey." the dance l'loor, not out of the arena. Why hadn't he dumped Joy Strained, agonized, he danced. Without a hiatus the band slipped weeks ago, as he had planned? He had already feigned the l'lu to avoid into another number: Stardu~d, the all-time favorite- and everything her during the week, so that option was out. Sudden complications, carne hack. maybe? Pneumonia? Meningitis? A convincing' pneumonia required­ It had poured on that prom night so long ago, he remembered it aside from a hacking cough - some bloody sputum, which was hard clearly now: the last night he'd spent with Elaine. They had gone to fake. What were the symptoms of meningitis? He looked them up, with each other for nearly six months, were madly in love, and then but before he had time to rehearse them, the prom had already a-f.­ something had changed. He didn't know how or why it had changed, rived. but it had, so fast, irrevocably, terribly, in the space of less than two - With rain, that bane of tuxedoes and gowns. Ted seemed to recall weeks. It wasn't anything she'd said or done, she was somehow just it had rained at ~is o·wn prom, twenty-live years ago. (Did it rain at all different, not someone to love anymore. She knew how he felt, but proms?) she couldn't believe it; and they danced on that sad dim floor with He and June arrived early, as required, manning their chaperone the rain corning down in torrents, two adolescents drowning, station, a table beside the door. They shared it with Ted's colleague, drowning. Stardust. Sometimes I wonder how I spend each lonely Hilda Peck, a typing teacher, and her husband, Max, a bald, robust, night . ... She cried and cried in the car on the way back horne and cigar-smoking fellow who instantly bored Ted stiff. The kids strag. he'd kissed her goodbye forever in the lush May rain before she ran gled buoyantly in, looking grown-up and stilted and dislocated in inside the house and he never saw her again. And he'd never figured their formal clothes. When .Joy arrived with that imbecile, Frank out where things went wrong. Pippa, the varsity quarterback, she looked so beautiful Ted's mouth Now .Joy had the same mournful look as Elaine. That suffocating d­ went dry. inginess surrounded her, spun a web that was dragging him do1vn. Her gown was satin- white, tight, elegant- totally different froQi' "How's it going with Pippa?" he said, forcing· a smile. what the other girls wore. Max Peck, with a suck of cigar, remarked "How do you think it's going?" she said. "The cre.ep already made a that she sure was one hell of a dish for a high school kid, and Hilda pass at me on the way over here. I told him I'm having my period." slapped the back of his hairy hand. The slippery rub of her hip against his. He would dump her his Ted watched Joy dance with dense, compact Frank Pippa. (What week, he swore he would, but before he did .... Maybe they could was that line from Markham? Whose breath blew out the light within meet tomorrow night, she could wear this gown .... He said, 'jAre this brain?); he watched her body liquify the satin, eyed the silky you having your period?" shadows of her thighs. He listened to Max's fishing stories, set in vast She looked at him, said nothing, smiled, said: "No, Bear- I'm three Canadian wilderness where he wished Max would go this minute days -overdue." and never return; and danced'two foxtrots with .June to please her and the crowd, smiling and nodding to bright, dull, bad and good. Christopher Fahy The rain streamed down past half-closed casement windows in the Tenants Harbor blowy night. The band took a break, the l'loor cleared, and the room filled with talk. Much milling around and punchbowl business, and Max dis­ patched the wilderness. Time to talk about gardening now. He'd planted ten rows of gold 'n silver corn this year, and by god - By god, Joy was right at their table - without Frank Pippa - demure, subdued, and wearing a charming smile. "Hello, Mrs. Peck. Hello, Mr. Wharton." Ted's skin turned hot. Then the introduction of June, and he felt creepy. June smiling, extending her hand, and Joy - the perfect lady, the ideal Aubrey College-student·to·be -clasping it with aplomb and saying how pleased she was. The band had regrouped and it started up. Joy said, "May I have this dance, Mr. Wharton?" Ted's heart skipped a beat. ''Why certainly, Joy." He smiled, stood, A Nazi Looks at Death: 1946 took her naked illicit arm, and walked onto the floor. Her hand in his hand, his hand in the small of her back, he looked at June and rolled his eyes in an oh-well-what-can-you-do sort of way I must have slept, though I would have denied - and Joy rubbed her satin against him. that much, as I had denied everything. "Joy! Not so close!" Men kill in war. But what told me I had · She pressed her lips together and looked at his eyes. "I've missed slept was the first warming up of bird-sang, you, Bear. It's been over a week." June was watching them dance. He acted normal, smiled and said, a flute in an auditorium that "That flu .... " filled in front of Mozart, Beethoven, "It couldn't have been that bad, you didn't miss any school." Wagner. I fitted the note into the "Every day I went home and collapsed." dream I was having of my wife, body "Really." Sad, sad eyes. 11 Yes, really." smelling of milk and children, soul swelling They danced; she clung; he felt stifled, acutely aware of the crowd. with the crash of symphony. I must rise 1'Not so close, we have to be careful!" now and put a strong face on. Forget my "Okay, okay." wife. My children. And refuse the blindfold. She eased off, and they danced half an arm's length apart. She said, "June's pretty, Bear. She looks much older than your wedding pic· ture, but she's pretty." H.R. Coursen "Yes, she is." Brunswick Thirteen Ways of Fires there is supposed Looking At to be a creature called a salamander A Puppet which can live inside fires I have often envied it when I open the firebox door I VIII glowing red caverns entice A white puppet sits on stage I know solemn nobles entrance me with the possibility crumpled and printed books with movement; of wandering,· miniscule, inside upon itself. But I know too picking my way through intricate crystals that the puppet is entangled around me all a shimmering red II in what I know. I make my way to the middle I sit in darkness while hot heat lancing like a blind IX jubilant structures of burn puppet. When the puppet was hoisted offstage where one can explore forever it marked the edge glory constructing III of one of many dreams. flesh unmade The puppet dances gracefully everlasting. to a music of pantomime. X Susan Atherton At the sight of puppets Bradford IV dancing in stage light, There are three even the Parisienne madames sharp claps. would cry real tears of laughter. The puppet merges with the audience. XI Morning Mail She strolled in the garden v under a parasol. The North Heal Post Office is dwarfed hy anything larger than an I'm not sure if Once, a fear pierced her old voting shack. Still, like a collapsed star, its gravity determines the audience was all puppets in that she mistook the path of everyone in town. I am early today, tired of scanning the or If the puppet was the audience. her shadow posters and pamphlets on the wall. Looking out the window, I see Was the dance alive for a puppet. them coming, falling towards me in staggered clusters, the unequal or just still pictures? fragments of some larger entity. Ours is the pure will of habit, the XII need to know what is going on, or, after years of knowing better, the VI The Seine is flooding. search for hope in empty boxes, the wait for the soft clack, the Curtains start to clOse, The puppet must be hoisted. shadowy sliver of a letter falling into place. hesitate But nothing has fallen into place yet. The mail is slmv. The unseen and jerk open. XIII clerk is still wrestling with the bags. Perhaps that is why the old The puppet is hidden It was a play all year long. folks stroll along, like green and grey clad animals against the chang· but I see its shadow. There was applause ing hills where the trees have shrunk to one blaze of color. They and there would be more applause. shiver as they sense overtaking them the whine of tires from jacked­ VII The white puppet sat up pickups, the siren radials of D3tsuns - the arrival of the young Oh fur coated ladies of Paris backstage among the harmonics of engines idling. why do you dream of china dolls? in the wings. Some just look and leave. A few, an even mixture of men and Can't your see how the puppet Elizabeth A. Bailey women, decide to wait a little, joined by the walkers who have endears, Winthrop caught up all at the same time. It is understood that the oldtimers entangles himself at your feet? will fill the three chairs or take the prime leaning space at the service table. The rest of us just find a place and stand. Some confidently open the doors of their boxes. It hegins. First class. The letters fall slowly, with the rhythm and noise of a had typist. It is best to joke at times like this. People we cannot even see, people from everywhere - lovers, relatives, enemies, pests - have made choices about us in separate moments, and we wait for the results. I try not to stare at the glass door of my slot. Then begins The Sex Life of the Cardinal a choreography of hands. There are those who cannot believe in their empty boxes, who Because he has no mate the cardinal grow edgy and pace certain that the clerk is hiding their mail. But dives into his own reflection still the emptiness beckons like a tunnel to an abjss. By the time the mistaking himself in the double newspapers are going up, by the time the fifteenth person has said, glass door for the red competitor uJust what I need, more bills!" the young have left, and the five old citizens are not listening to anything but each other. Dorothy shouts who won't be moved, as If the route at Edwin, who is nearly deaf, that they have a letter from Ruth Hut· to beat his solitary blues chinson. She is so used to shouting that it has become her normal were to wipe out every rubric dude voice, the register of a gull in pain. Gladys and Tom shout hack. Ed· who struts in the wings sporting shoes win is shouting about the weather, uncertain if anyone hears. They will go on that way, not like children or squeaky wheels, just he fancies for himself. The tawny shouting all together then pausing for someone else to shout. female, perched on an oblique branch Shouting bits of letters. Louder; Like souls in Sheol whose names wonders how long it will take have been spoken, the fiame of their lives advanced. Gesturing. They him to read the composite scent she carries - shout so loud it is as if their voices have become di'sembodied, as if they are saying nothing. blackberry, holly and grape - the soft I leave them there, burning with the warmth of small, loud fur· grass lining of her hospitable nest. naces, pilot light" in their spectacles, their hands waving, holding letters like crazed butterflies.

Alison H. Deming David Adams Cape Elizabeth So. Euclid. Ohio REVIEWS

Sixteen Pastorals/Ruth Mendelsohn The White Words/B~ron Wormser (Bangor: Theodore Press, 1983) Winner of the 1982 Poetry Chapbook Competition (Houghton-Mifflin, 1982, $9.95) sponsored by the Maine State Commission on the Arts and the Humanities. Baron Wormser came to Maine twelve years ago. After a year on the coast he What Ruth Mendelsohn tries to do literally in her quietly compassionate Sixteen went inland. He and his Wife built a house in the woods. The Washington Post Pastorals is take us back to the land, suggesting a way that we in America can quotes him - "I didn't go to writer's school or anything like that, b ut I read start over, can restore ourselves by shepherding the place that is in our charge. poetry on almost a daily basis." It is that familiarity, that assimilation of the old But these are not merely idyllic pieces celebrating a sentimental and rustic and the new which permeates The White Words. Wormser is less a Maine writer simplicity. Worked like a sonata in three movements with a final coda, the book is than a poet who has found in Maine a universal perspective. His poems reach unified by both its honest and moving tone and compact style. beyond the parochial alliances and perceptions that limit so much Maine poetry. The "Five Long Songs" of the first sectin act as an exposition in which the poet It is not so much gossip that absorbs I Them as a fondness . .. for measuring describes her love as he lives close to the land, seeking his own territory. In the lives: I . .. it is these towns that dignify the slimmest? I lives with a history, wedding poem, Mendelsohn has the wedding party "eat wild blueberries, not Of cake." Always she sets the objects of the poem down before us as if on solid remembering even dogs? With an earnest pleasure, a rush of anecdote and regret. ground, simply, directly, so that we are moved by the quiet assurance of each brief five-line poem. Wormser's poetry is compassionate, investing the ordinary With an ironic yet The second section, "Five Exurban Pastorals," develops the theme of removing gentle humor. In "Servants" he inquires - oneself from ''the industrial offlands" to one's own named country of "the new "What happened to them? . . . They lost faith casually, without a f uss, I Being green stunning." Here, the lines wi_den on the page, and the poet has also added somewhat cynical to begin with . . . What did they do? I . . . Sensed desire three extra! lines to each poem in this section. The effect is both cumulative and before it was voiced. I Made jam and mocked doctors . .. How big were their expansive- a nice touch. _ lives? No more than a shoebox . . . And we?. _ . We parade around our houses The shocking finale, with the longest-lined and most substantial poems of the in our underwear, I . . . We grow shoddy, become imprecise in our speech, I book, creates a pastoral holocaust. Now, Mendelsohn names our disaster, warns Believe in the f uture. " us of what will happen if we do not take our role of earth's overseers seriously: Eschatological flickerings run through The White Words. We are lured into a "Call it an end of blood I And breath ... " quiet speculation on the ultimate, on last things. The coda closes the book in a tone of thoughtful resignation and acceptance of To become part of that undistinguished I Duff hidden beneath the snow. I Let the end of life, while awaiting the possibility of a new beginning. Hopefully, we there be ends. This lingering is for now. I These leaves, like men, will cling to will all be wiser for having read Sixteen Pastorals. what they know.

Kathleen Lignell One reviewer (Gerald Stern) suggest Wormser's poetry is what E.A. Robinson Stockton Springs might have written if living today. I doubt that. It's just that occasionally a poem gives off a Robinson sound -the tauC controlled use of rhyme and rhythm. But Robinson is a Romantic, nostalgic, favoring the abstract. Wormser's eye is on the sparrow. His mastery of poetic forms, his fine use of rhythm, rhyme, dissonance and assonance, are keyed to the particular, to us, inhabitants of " .. . botched democracy's inadvertent showpiece?" Though Baron Wormser m ay not yet have found a single voice or direction, The White Words is a dazzling display of what contemporary poetry can be. . . . It is enchanting. You can't deceive yourself, what you write is you.

g b clark

Entering the Walking-Stick Business/ Poems by Sylvester Pollet (Blackberry Press, Brunswick, Maine, 1982, 47 pages, $4.00)

~If we agree with Seneca that "as a man speaks, so is he," then Sylvester Pollet is a man who catalogues experience with startling precision and clarifies emotions with disarming simplicity. In this long-awaited collection, we hear a speaker who finds inspiration in the ordinary: approaching a mountain, digging a drain trench, driving home fast the back way, or sitting, sitting, carving walking-sticks for sale. Yet his subtle images are far from ordinary; rather, they are fresh, honest, precise.· Winter Dreams/H.R. Coursen Pollet's is a passionate yet controlled voice that· speaks for us about the rhythm (Cider Mill Press, P.O. Box 211, Strarford, CT 06497, 1982, $4.00) of life in rural Maine. For him the commonplace is extraordinary, worthy of a careful look through his fine lens, He affirms, for example, the majesty of deer In the first poem of this, his eighth volume since 1973, Coursen "rewinds the moving through soft snow, the satisfaction of a green canoe; a good reel, wind reel," plays a life back in reverse-motion images, ending with the bizarre noti on and waves, and the distinction of September, the month of the ox-pull. He even of an infant sliding back into the womb and even sperm and egg uncoupling, learns "to plant the garden not for the philosophy but because the soil is ready "where beginnings are." Throughout this beautiful book his quest is both back and it's time." '' toward the dawn of things" and "ahead to memory, back to futures where sea However, just as easily as he isolates the famili ar and makes it new, Pollet and sky turn upside down." This doub le-journey is mostly taken alone, although speaks to us about the uncommon: love in a cold climate where young women tend Coursen gives us a share of delicate and sensitive love poems, made especially to thicken early while men grow leathery, taciturn, morose. With a keen sensitivity moving because of their gentleness and lack of self-indulgence. In many of these 56 poems the reader will sense a poet alone but not yet lonely, as he waits for in his poignant '"Letter to My Father/' dead for a year,~ he sighs, "I've shown you my last poem." Candidly he reveals his own process of self-discovery in several another's voice "to close up the silent space beside me." poems, all titled simply "Self-Portrait"; when he eventually decides to "quit look­ Cour sen favors the short stanza and fairly short poems, both perfect for im­ ing/' he concedes to just "follow the grain." pressionistic sketches of nature aound him. He is a great namer of things - birds, And it is that voice of victorious surrender, that intentional letting-go, that stars, seasonal subtleties - as if their movements will tell him something of his own. As he leads us through his recurring imagery of aviation, woodpiles, s ports, readers will hear throughout this colll ction. We can be gr.ateful he has entered this walking-stick business and share with us his "extra gift of art." mining, dusks, he holds to the "azimuths of faith." As he says; "We live in a found space beyond the turn of stars. Alleluia. Amen." Carol Kontos Terry Plunkett The Hours o:f Morning/william carpenter Octavia's Hill/Margaret Dickson (The University r~f Virginia Press, 1981) IHaughton·Mij]lin, 1983, $13.95)

1 can't seem to let go of Bill Carpenter's poetry. I have read The Hours of !>forn­ \.Yhy so little memorable Maine fiction~ short m~ long? A centuries assessment ing over and over- treasured it, quarried with it, learned from it, found my aHe­ reveals the gamut - from Sara Orne Jewett to Ben Ames \VHliams, with Kenneth giance to certain poems shifting with time. Learning these poems is Hke entering Roberts thrown in out of desperation, Thoreau from despair, Harriet Beecher a new land in which the poems are both the people and the features of their land­ Stowe for patriotis1q and Stephen King out of oor adulation of the dollar. Can't in­ scape. And they are drawn with a depth simply unavailable to most of clude Erskine Caldwell. He gave up his down-east allegiance easily and early, hav­ Carpenter's better~known contemporaries. The strongest poems here repay con­ ing discovered there were more rednecks in Georgia than in Maine. Debatable. tinued reading, l'eveal a ravenous intelligence and a unique and joyfully pure sen­ The flaw in most :ftvfa.ine writing (fiction and non.fiction) is that both genres are sibility. fictional in the most abased meaning of the term. Mythic adulteration to down­ It is disheartening how trendy contemporary poetry has hecome. I think the right lies: packaged containers of newspaper columns awash in salt spray and few weak poems in this volume are weighted with too much easy irony, too loon calls, nostalgic forays over the hill and through the woods to grandma's cozy many convenient" ... I think of's." But it measures Carpenter's strength as a poet trailer: Bert & I reruns; humble poseurs, It's enough to send one back to Jacob that he casts off these affectations quickly and gives us so much rich! varied1 com­ Abbott, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm and The Golden Boys! plex poems. Some of thern have the dark humor of a fun· house mlrror stared into Whether or not Octavia's Hi// endures as memorable fiction, Margaret too long. Others dissect our own timeless rituals. Finally, the new land is ours~ Dickson's first novel reveals a real writing talent. a writer with the courage to the new people are old us. Rather than quote wonderful lines (there are too look at Maine realistically and possessing an imagination capable of using Maine many) may 1 commend the poems "Autumn Encounter," "The Keeper/' as a metaphor for universal concerns, In Octavia's Hill Margaret Dickson has 'not "friends of de Chirico," "The Man Who Built a Car," 'Cezanne at Mont Sainte. created a Yoknapatawpha County but its terrain suggests the comparison. Victoire," Five Translations from the Poems of Anasim Miscjek," and "The Grand A threat of nuclear disaster contains the metaphysics of Octavia's Hill; its philo· Design" - deep and wonderful poems. sophical direction is contained within Tave, a woman haunted hy the ghosts of her ancestors, constrained by marriage~ and trapped in a physical nightmare. David Adams. The concrete reality of a finely observed rural Maine provides a sharp and im~ mediate sense of place. The nuclear disaster is used thematically, balanced by Tave's memories and ac· tions. She finally comes face to face with herself in a cellar which offers no real Light Years/Poems by Roberta Chester protection from the threat, whose roots are generations old. Over this she has as (Puckerbrush Press, Orono, Maine, 1983, 96 pages, $5.95) little control as over the approaching radioactive cloud from the west. However, Tave's life is not all darkness. We are given an almost idyllic account of her rural upbringing) her love affair and marriage. Here, for this reviewer the The subjects of Roberta Chester's poems l'ange from her immediate family and 1 the relationships that sustain her to her Jewish ancestry and the rituals of that nostalgic evocation of nature provides a rather tenuous link with the novel's eli· European heritage. She explores the patterns of life, often in the context of the matic focus - the Green clan. past and the future. As a consequence, other times and other places become a The Greens are thnse Maine inhabitants practically all Maine writers either frequent referent in her poetry. avoid or He about the Maine rednecks. The Greens are members of that malig­ Amid that tension between what is, what watb and what might be, readers have nant subcuJture> a subculture certainly not confined to Maine and one that. constant evidence of her metaphorical mind. Her unique analogies unify the en~ observed realistically and used symbolically, has given significance to the work of tjre collection, For example, to prepare for wlnter the poet sews certain scraps of such writers as Steinheck, Erskine Caldwell and Faulkner. It is this use of the summer into the lining of her coat and stuffs "layers of clothing with memories Greens that gives Octavia's Hill not only its graphic focus but a symbolic dimen­ against the wind11 just as her great grandmother had sewed coins into the hem of sion rarely found in novels about Maine. Margaret Dickson has the Jntelligence and skill and courage to say some important things about men and women - and her coat to cross the border. Similarly, in "Sonogee Nurs~ng Hom~" she observes the old women whose "eyes are full of empty rooms" and whose "hands lying in Maine. their laps like gifts move over familiar things." Such images are as satisfying as they are startling. Consider the sleeping poe\ g b clark with ''stars jingling in his pocket. . , like so much loose change/' or "the man at the edge of the field (who) speaks to April with seeds." It's impossible for a reader nol to mUrmur, "Ah1 yes." But even when her voice is occasionally somber or pensive, Roberta Chester is not meJanchoiy or remorseful. Rather~ she seems to find comfort in taking long looks and making unexpected connections. In that process she rejoic-es in the possibilities of language and diligently continues "to find the words that will get it right." It is her consistent ·effort to do so that hrings satisfying rewards for the readers of her poetry,

Carol Kontos Amy Williams Murray Street

Point of View Crazy Quilt

When she raves about Each fall J The beauty of the gulls, quilt for St. Mary's auction I wonder if she knows Crazy quilts, The duty of the gulls, like young couples. And why she won't Extol the grace We still make love. Of the blithe young miss J will slllver Who cleans her place. like an old tree, slluddering, shuddering Minnie Bowden until dry leaves Orland fly off, Musings by the Painter On the Hidden Order of His Art Rhetoric Espanol: Yes, Anton Ehrenzweig, my friend in faith, Goya and.Picasso true there is an order hidden in our art. Whether loosed from cranial right or cranial left Here on this expanse of red dust or from a childhood's residue of unconstraints beneath the yellow haze of sun, it comes unbidden, surprising like an evening zephyr on sand baked red lifting a curtain, brings the ,Starlight to our eyes. through years of blood; here, where nothing remains but memory Not entirely hidden from us as we work, and echoes of dying animals; but dimly seen within our long-partitioned minds here the women no longer dance, (a sort of Yang and Yin of these creative things), children's laughter does not echo like some treasures in deep water comes to life into the night air. only at the diver's touch; as last things are Here you see only bleached bones best (withing our hallowed eschatology), and the crazed eyes of a mad animal so here, he points, is where the brush turned suddenly frazzled into a grotesque parody of itself. on undercoat, to drag a sweep of flowing color, Here there is only pain, pulsed by some strong ventriculated surge a land that grace has forsaken as if guided on an automatic course. where dealth has the only hands.

Then he knew the thing was done. One more touch Tobin Simon would kill the portrait's brooding mood. Rockport He dared not move, beyond the laying of his brush, and backed away to view what he (or it) had done. Though the sitter could never say, with pointing pride, "See how beautiful! am, my likeness mirrored for eternity on this mount of painted cloth, ,. yet she, reflecting on her innate selj. knew what glamorous photographs of her concealed the inner person that this painting now revealed.

Evans B. Reid Waterville

Title at the End Many's the morning when growing restive at my typewriter and I f eel the need upon me I've ridden the Rabbit 6110 of a mile up the bumpy dirt road turned left onto South Road for 1. 3 miles left onto Route 17 1.9 miles where the General Store shares the town with the P. 0 . the Real Estate office the garage and the empty bakery that's moved its breads to Manchester. I rarely linger there isn't anything else to see just get back in the Rabbit drive 1. 9 and 1.3 and the 6/10 miles down the bumpy dirt road and I am back at my desk where I think about all the space between things in Maine and how the trip closes up the gap between us me and my typewriter and we get back to business writing this poem that I will call as I light up and inhale GOING FOR CIGARETTES 1N READFIELD, MAINE.

Ted Bookey Readfield Photo by Kosti Ruohaama, Courtesy .Black Star the red paint people The Death of A Woman A sunset if the valleys sank some twenty six thousand feet i'd pack you in the trunk, frances, up the south side of Everest, get you away from the sheepscot; she jell..:_ the hell with this sylvan glade. for a mile, they said, without uttering a cry you and your sons; the stone into a glowing pink crevasse. might be a problem: heavy Her belt harness unhitched on the shock absorbers. from a lifeline, she stepped off I'm the last; no one would know. like a space walker the cousins in new jersey haven't and sixteen men been around in years. saw her recede to a dot when the valleys sank and asked only then they moved their sacred objects, why they ever ascended. before the abnaki, long before Her laughing on the radio, the europeans found the new urging them on- gravesites, which they thought at first a woman suspicious for their stones of ochre: tint who had sought her place­ of the infernal? but then its use unnumbed their thoughts outweighed theit fears, and like a su9k of oxygen they in turn left us their objects, the long way up the slopes. household furniture stained red. But a woman should not die that way, we moved them, house to house. clean and absolute, by dropping silently this we know them as the red paint people. out of life vanishing at such a height. when the water rises It seemed worse than men i'/1 be here. perhaps i'/1 see the others who jell to their deaths. packing up, your friends and neighbors She had an earthiness carried to the cars; and who'll be here in her laughter to move the man and woman and their at them for striving three-year-old, dead on the same day? up the slope of God we'll nod, moving silently to reach a place from bank to roadside, an eye where sex was cocked to the sheepscot, till no matter. we have you safely loaded, ready Bruce P . Spang with your furnishings for higher ground, Readfield and back weighted out onto the roadway, for the ride into the hills; relieved at last to have you in the nick ofgeologic. time.

Archie Hobson New Gloucester An insistent salutation as welcome, surely, TLC as the diffident hello of that fetching wraith, mask tipped to tempt This morning's glance a daredevil kiss, the ritual probe at those whiskers, anticipating of a tomboy tongue, or more often the embalmer's blade, sharpened simply the companionable hug of soulmates Aubade her vision of iron into a surreal adrift in loneliness, fleshing out insight: The stubble, a shade the soft, clingy camouflage donned Asleep, he whispers, sighs, and dreams. grayer than his concave cheeks, in the fastest of those periodic dreams Angel, he laments, as if the midnight . had thickened overnight. The rank sampling a fondness for one another world, now his own, somehow could conjure outcropping of that hideously robust they had been schooled to dread. darkness into flesh. Having slept tumor crowding a temporal lobe in unfamiliar beds, he is not through into terminal apathy? At the window, knees tensed desiring. Sweet thought. Not that he fears against the sill, haphazardly the black-crowned heron of the night, Either that visit or during watching a lone junco down that bird, flying so preposterous another of those countless trips below frantically bobbing for over the suburbs of the dawning city. to look in on him, perhaps seeds in a clutter of leaves, Heading north: what he remembers feeling under the sheet to finger Lorna was reminded anew of life's in his own crowded rookery; a need the catheter, hoping for his sake best kept secret in peace as well for tenderness. I feel its hunger to be greeted by name, she relapsed as war. As if to mute the clamor as the cry so huge inside me, waking me into vain nostalgia recalling of Paul's lopsided breathing, she heard at the first light, the loud flat qwak qwak the uncountable times h_is old spiced herself wail, not uttering a sound: "Oh, as the heron arrives, flying out cheek had grazed hers, a breast, Christ, I'm left once more with nothing to feed on the tidal flats. her navel, then on down beyond but a vested interest the mockery of that fruitless in a lo ved one's death." Kathleen Lignell linea alba to her eternally wistful Stockton Springs thighs, being addressed all the while Farrell 'Davisson in the rasping gutterals of enticed lust. Bar Harbor What I Knew

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I've a letter from my aunt who lives in the city, and it put me in mind of my first "Women," continued my aunt, "are intimates of few, subsisting as they do· summer ther·e. 111 rgely on sorrow and cultivated, constrained bliss. They know that knowledge "The trouble wlth men," she wrote, "is that they only see fear as something too quickly given is pain; they wresfle privately with time. lgnorance is not im­ to be conquered. They find it hard to wait; they must always be lurking. They potence, but a search - a slow rush toward wisdom." have not discovered that ignorance should be treasured like a silk-lined bo;", waiting -fearful and anxious to be filled. " Grolliers bookstore was the mecca of all serious young poets in the Cambridge My favori te place to linger that summer was at an organic supermarket on Wal­ of my time. 1 was serious enough, God knows, but untutored, rough, and fresh den Street. T he "super" a joke of the young, just an old store overtaken and from the country, and a small Catholic school. Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley were painted a bold red, but still keeping the low, hare wood, and splintery porch out heroes, reeling off reams was no special task, but I had not read a word of Robert front. This market was my museum, my encyclopedia, my atlas. Our fare at Lowell. home had been simple and bland. I was eager to exchange my mother's pork I learned quickly, however, that in Cambridge one could get by knowing little, chops and boiled potatoes for something richf'r, and the knowledge of how to but knowing how certain things were done, and not done. A certain style and cook it. People dt·essed in pale linen, denims, beads, beautiful and exotic streamed method were necessary. An informed eccentricity was useful as was a world· through this little store. I watched them scoop up hags of jewel-colored beans wise in~e nu o usn ess_. I listened at ever·_v corner for clues, enjoying the 11ame, an­ and seeds. Adzuki. mung, alfalfa, fenugreek, these were my poetry. It was a long xious to be successfu l. Amid the whispers, boasts, the bon mots, I caught the p rocess. 1 hought some cashew butter once, but found it bitter, and th~ cakes I rever·ent and ambitious tones of "Grolliers." A place, a shrine, a rite of passage. I made with the pale, brown-colored fl ours were flat and tasted of dust. Strll, I per· would go then. I walked the streets peering and. prodding into doorways to find sisted, and bought almond oil soap to perfume my skin, and r ose-clay, and henna. its address, then savored the knowledge of it s obscure geogr·aphy for weeks. 1 dressed as carefully as any ingenue for these tt•ips to the store, the crisp cotton Planning, preparing. blouse embroidered in orange thread, the long, light calico skirt. I thought of all The tableaux I fo und when I finally braved the pol'lal stunned me. It was a ft er the many soft browns, the warm earthy smells, the soft film of golden dust in the all supposed to be a store. "Store," I knew the word and prefaced by "book" it shop and I wanted to be that soft and war·m, li ke a hum, a chant, not a whistle or· meant certain things. Rows of shelve:s stocked with the items for sale; a counter, a shout. a cash register, ample vertical reference points: those shelves, the spines of One day a large bald-headed man watched me as I pondered and :stared, s niffed books, the narrow aisles, the title printed up and down. and tasted. He stood silentl v, still, insouciant with his big arms folded casually What met me here? Nothing but a dusty horizon. A ratty brown couch, long across his chest, knowing ~e both felt the interest of his gaze. and low, heaped with coats and hats. At one end in dim light cast by an odd "Come home \v'ith me," he said, and 1 did. He was a macrobiotic he said, and assortment of lamps, an old man with a misshapen head and a queer fa ce. The talked about Zen in small phrases, quietly with a powet•ful soft ness. I remember lower half of this face was a thick bristle pile, just a shade grayer than the dusty that he made me great steaming bowls of brown rice. Rich and good, pliant he· prickles that upholstered the couch. Fmm the floor there rose tottet·ing piles of tween my teeth. Savory, soaked in strong, salty brown soy sauce. He showed me dusty volumes. The few shelves looked too personal to browse through. A frieze how to cook it with just the r ight pmportion of \·vater to grain. I watched the of black and white photographs ran round the walls, like the faded movie stars in gleami ng kemels dance on the heat, and I watched the cold silvery ~atcr pour the Greek restaurant back home. but these were famous poets, I was sure, over them and turn cloudy and hot. I ate three bowls quick, and he laughed, though their names were names I didn't know. People who made words I had "You've never had brown rice before?'! never heard. Still, you could tell by their faces t hat they were poets. There - that ''No," I said. fat one with the long bushy hair. Somehow I knew just how he would sound, and The empty bowls grew cool while we smoked pipefuls of rich hrown grass, and smell, and act, and just the kind of rituals he might chant. I could almost taste the then went to bed. Simply, without a word; we knew this to be the_intention of exotic food he used to feed his visions, though they were morsels I hadn't chewed watching, and brown rice, and the fragrant pipe. He kissed me first in strange yet. Everything was low and lean and stretched out, reclining, resting, leaning. places, never on my lips but behind my ears, beneath my arms, in the damp Only the boys were upright. crooks of my elbows and knees. I hung between his arms, pliantly, though pre· Those golden boys who knew what it was they were supposed to do here. I sently his gestures became wild and rough. "Come,·· he murmured in my ear, "I'm wanted to learn. They had known the rules always, had listened to the words as going to give you a bath." There was that sharp, dark edge in his voice I did not their due, got the litany of names by heart from birth, had tasted all the foods like. 1 was afraid, vet afraid to seem backward, unyielding, less than daring. pas· forever . They tried their best now to look kindly and amused at me, who had to sionate. "No," [ s ai~d meekly, almost whining. He hit the side of my fa ce hard with piece together scraps, reassemble past experience with new evidence. I. who was one l~and. 1 remember the red light behind my eyes and the pain, the surprise. a lear·ner. I could hear them tasting wm·ds, ''winsome," "naif" ... In the instant of "I won't," 1 said, outraged- as if my outrage would give him pause. He hit me their scrutiny of me I recognized how foreign their purposes were from mine. I again on the other side, again the same red light and the pain. "Oh, you'll li ke it," was on a journey just beginning; they felt they had arrived full-blown at the desti· he said, his voice bright with tension though my passion crep·t out my feet and nation. We were at odds, but they held the superim· position at the moment since left me cold, shivering, shivering with fear and the knowledge of his rape. l could they knew the Hta.ny of fame. They were at home in this odd place, welcomed in; not think about what he might do with me; I could only imagine the icy cold r, by virtue of inferior knowledge, slow in coming, was a curosity, something to white sides of his bath, the glare _of the cruel light on my eyes. Darkness. I be held to the light and examined cooly, kindly, they' supposed. wanted. No one should see me. Aft•aid of the consequence of my words and_ afratd "You've never been in here before," said the shopkeeper, the saint, the mystic, of anyone heat·ing my complaints. I struggled hard for some while. I held my ton· the shaman who launched indeed, some magic het·e, but it wasn't mine, and try gue in fear, and he grew more ardent as my thrashing lessened; he passed_on to as 1 could I could not think of one woman who had emerged from under his other things. 1 tried to crouch and hide from these caresses carefully, caut t ous l~ dusty wings. "No,'' I said. as 1 might have done from his hlows. He pulled my head roughly toward hts Deprived of power, hope, and knowledge, I panitked; made r apid visions of crotch, pushing aside the long tangle ot my hai r to manuever my face and lips. I revenge, cleaned up the store, built up shiny metal shelves stocked with books in clamped them shut, to scream, but quietly so no one should hear. They would vivid, glossy jackets, made a cash register ring, and ring out boldly. I silenced out know 1 came here with this stranger. ly fault, my fault , mistake. the eager voices of the fair haired boys talking of their poetry, struggling to recall He grabbed my arm now, and his vc!ice w heedled as the grip became tighter a line of mine I could hurl like light. "I heard stars crack •. oh Christl I'm Shake· and tighter. "Do it," he said again and pushed nty fa ce into him. "Not lik~ this,". I speare's shrew." But that wasn't written yet. said it between clenched teeth, gmwin1 bold for an instant before the pam of hJs The shopkeeper looked up at me long and calm as if we were waking from a grasp overtook me. He was in no mood or poetry or ~1y simple fi ght. Rern ~ t ~lber · long nap together. .I realized that in all my time I had not moved but a few steps ing his bigness, the pain at my arm and my face, and 111 the roots of my hatr, feel­ into the room. I moved closer. "I never read poetry myself; it takes too long," he ing his awful tension and power, his Jrgency, his rape, I co:11plied ~ i th his re· said. quests, ct·ying and choking, which c h ~ered him, I suppose. I comphed, and l_ay pinned beneath his bulk un til mornin when in the sickly dawn he let me rtse and t'Un home, unharmed.

Ellen A. Endter North Yarmouth Photo by Bruce Armstrong

Silence (Among the letters to Dr. Pitzele)

Dear Sir, It began by force, by forcing my!.telf to remain silent, to restrain The problem is, sir, that it seems to have been a one shot deal. I II that ignorant impulse when it rose before it could escape and falsify can't seem to shut my voice off again, though I have long since everything. It worked. Gradually as I became more and more silent wanted to - it blabbers day and night, deafening, drowning out the II the deepest waters of my soul became less murky and my aural sense faintest murmurs. I can only remember, only dream of how it was l developed a sensitive balance. With equilibrium came isolation and when every stone had a different ineffable name, every variation of the sea about me became calm, almost still, all about me. Finally I the evening sky had a name describing its color, tone, weight, its sep· could not speak at all, nor did I want to. And I was meticulous about arate and partial meaning, its startling variations of self. my writing: every word was good and I could not bear the disgrace of It is obvious now how useless it is to attempt to communicate. It permitting bad, unnecessary or purely functional words to become doesn 't interest me any more. I knew what metaphors were. 1 knew real. then what was beneath my abstract soul . . . I permit myself despair, Colors, sound, vegetables, animal carcasses, fur, etc. .. . began to my only happiness since happiness ceased to exist. I am alieni the speak clearly; that is, I became receptive to their voices. It was beau· poets themselves sense this, but cannot help me. They alone were tiful. I was alone. Alone as a plant or a planet, though rar less isolated m y hope and they are no hope at all ... and unto myself as humans are prone to be. I turned away from men, I prattle on like an idiot, stupid and happy e nough. 1 talk about lost in the sound or substantial verse. writing, television, my latest lust, now and then I linger over some No one understood. Nothing mattered. My writing became abstract particularly beautiful lines, and I remember in my h eart that ungodly until the letter meant nothing to me beyond itsell and was useless, language of absolute silence. Only remember and can never express. an archaic fossil of a primitive and vulgar stratum. Of course it And the attempt, the attempt drives me farther and farth er away. couldn't last, it was too heady a state. A rebellious desire coiled up in Consequently, sir, I refuse to feel any moral remorse. God exists me from some changing spiral in the core of my person. I wanted to superlluously. This mockery or an explanation is my last duty to hu· converse and exchange thoughts again. I was drawn backwards, manity, my final guilt and responsibility. I hunger for the silence. down through the channels of music, I gave my mind back its agile motion and began to speak again, whole once more and completely Anne Wadleigh false. Portland Hearing a Fat Man Bab!Jle

Was it (I wonder) A thing kind or cruel That God with Desh Wore down your mind No Quick Cure Blunt as my knuckle, Exercise Making you into a fool, My doctor tells me I'm not sick: While your poor Draw a line Label the line I've just a slightly damaged quick, Starved soul cried out Life Caused, one must suppose, in part To be articulate? Draw a dot at each end of the line By low blows aimed too near the heart. Label one dot · Ronald 'ZorQ Birth He says there's nothing to ensure Pol.. d Spring Label the other dot The malady will not recur, Death No special pill, no swift injection Go back and place the word To guard against a new infection, My In front of the three labeled words No vitalizing magic potion. The druggist did suggest a lotion Crumple this piece of paper Which, iffaithfully applied, Light it on fire Creates a pachydermous hide. Stomp out the flames with your feet Rub your hands in the ashes T1u! only problem, it appears: Rub your hands on your face Th~ process takes a hundred years. Look in the mirror Smile Jaae A. Lilldholm Lewiston You have not done What I asked.

Martlll Henry North Windlaam

In the beghining man, himself whole, took a byte from the apple dangling from the tree of knowledge, tbe tree of life ...

INSERT DISC IN DRIVE 1

BOOT SYSTEM

(F)ind: Truth (D)elete: Error (Slave: Love [L)oad: Infinity (R]etrieve: Eden

INSERT DISC IN DRIVE 2

(Search as you may among your discs and files, the software for that stellar system shining beyond the sectors of the window's silicon is not yet user friendly.)

]SYNTAX ERROR I Photo by Bruce A rmstrong

Jirn Davis Unity Chemotherapy

Like cherry soda and cough syrup, my eyes close as the needle punctures my vein another time.

Throughout my body the parade of sharp-toothed Piranhas line up in formation, mouths wide. I want them to eat the bad cells, But distinction to them is void.

I remember camp Lying peacefully in my hammock, and relax for a moment. That's what the book says to do.

But it comes so quickly! I was hoping the Compazine would help this time. I reach for the deformed, plastic basin, the plastic needle still in place.

My ribcage splits and stomach hardens. Eyes do not focus, Courtesy, Mai11e Photographic Workshop Legs do not move. Energy spent, I am as a melted candle. Carla Lake Auburn Anxiety There is still a door banging loosely in the wind, though the house is old and long empty.

I sit in the ruins to watch the door s wing. Things enter, and things leave. The air seems full, Then then slips out as though it was nothing. He had gone to the greenhouse to draw. And nothing, . The air being moist, or something else, The floor was wet, slippery. comes in again. Spiking a cactus as he walked by, He breathed the colour of its blossoms It will not end. With each slam, I start, Inside him. A dam was released: but go nowhere. He had seen that sunset, that cabin again. It begins to be frightening. And before it, the angle Somehow, I can't leave. Her back used to make against the porch chair, The one nearest the trees, the green woods then. This structure is all I have. I shut the door finally, Cacyn Purcell and wedge it with bits of board. Casco Is this safety?

The sky is there, arching over the open rafters, wide and absent. The walls are broken, and through the gaps, the field is wandering in.

Klrslen Backslrom Bar Harbor The Fate of Rameses Jones

What happens is, the third week of school, "Fungus" Wilson assigns me this HBon jour, Ms. Turgal," Ram says. She smiles, which is rare. She ignores me, term paper on Fate. There's fifteen of us in Senior (special) English and Fungus which is usual. "We're thinking about college." has fifteen topics on separate pieces of paper. His method is to stick them in a box "Fine!" She automatically picks up a ROTC pamphlet. "Do you have any place and we draw. Frankly, Fungus himself looks like he was drawn from a box . a special in mind? Now at State, Mr. Jones1 they have-" wet cardboard one. Paper due by Thanksgiving. So after class, though it makes ''Yale, Princeton, or Harvard, Ms. TurgaL" Which was a complete surprise to me late for soccer practice, I stop by his office. What does he mean, write a paper me, but I nod anyway. on Fate? Lysine Turgallooks at me like she's seeing me for the first time, then sort of Fungus is lumpish, sort of jammed-up looking, Trouble with him is, be knows raises her nose. "You boys are shooting rather high, aren't you?" She sort of too much. He peers up from behind his desk, adjusts tinted glasses and gives me frowns at me and J reaHze- she's forgotten my name, tvhich reaJ1y pisses me off, this merde-eating smile. "Yes, Christy?" Any words with s's in them he tends to seeing I've been at Adams aU four years. spit out so pieces of the words fly back at you. That's why the front rows in his "No, Ms. Turgal," Ram says gently but firmly. "Not high. Just on target." 1 mean, classes are always empty. I back up and ask him about Fate. that's the way he can talk and she gives him this rnerde-eating smile, turns and 1 "You do possess a dictionary1 Christy? ' rummages on her shelves and comes up with the catalogues, She makes a point Actually most of our teachers at Adams aren't that bad, considering what you of handing them to Ram then hands me a bunch of brochures - a couple of could get. Every place has a few losers. Fungus leans back, digs something from Vocational Techs and the State branch at Ft. Kent, which we should have given to his ear and inspects it. Canada years ago. "Big things are happening up there, Mr. Christy." I nod and tell him Fate is a force or power that predetermines events and leads "A big thing ought to happen to her," I blow, as Ram and I head back to Studv people to some sort of doom or destiny. What I meant to know is, what am I sup­ Hall. "She barely remembered mv name!" • posed to write about? "So, you learn to deal with p.;ople, Christy. Now which do you want, Yale, "What does your rather imprecise definition suggest, Christy?" Fungus tips Princeton Of' Harvard?" back in his swivel chair and hoists up his feet. Black shiny shoes and sagging, "Well -"And this is what I mean about Ram, how he could get you thinking greyish socks. "A philosophical dissertation on Fate in the deterministic literature and seeing things differently. ''I'm not sure. Think I could make one of them? Mv of the fin de siede?" grades aren't -" v If See what I mean? Anyway, I say1 "Oh, you mean take some guy and show how "Both of us, man! So what? you really want one of them, then you'll make it.. he's doomed or really makes it big?" Take my old man. Weill to some cracker college in F1orida. Probably majored in Fungus arches what go for his eyebrows. "In the vernacular, yes, Christy." Underwater Basketweaving. But he wanted to make it big- and so he did. So can Right off I knew who I'd write about. "Rameses," I say. we!"· "VVhich one?'' See what I mean? Ram has this confidence, Even when he gets in a jam he man­ 0 Which one?" ages to turn things around. Take that first party at his place the heginning of the "There were twelve Egyptian pharoahs named Rameses. They ruled from !' summer and what happened to Osric, his collie. Just a bunch of us guys, a few "I'm talking about Ram Jones, Mr. Lingus. Rameses Jones!" six-packs and a joint or two. Ram's folks had rented this. mammoth brown-shingled ark of a place right on ''Rameses Jones?" Fungus lunges forward. "Fate1 Christy, involves those with

some measure of greatness. Now I realize Rameses Jones' continental back~ the ocean. Ham's father was in Europe and his mother1 whom norm of us had groond has engendered much fascination around school. But he only entered seen but was rumored to be really beautiful, had gone to Boston. There was an Adams this falL And even being a senior does not, I'm afraid1 automatically insure old carriage house out back where Ram said any of us could sleep over if things greatness. got rough. From the soccer field came the sounds shoes make when they hit the ball solid. Actually the party started off real mellow. Ram had some terrific records O.uiet Then Coach Mastadon's voice. An impatient sound. Riot, Grateful Dead and Jimmy Hendrix. Then Ram broke open a case of Hein<' "Gutta go now_, Mr. Lin gus. Soccer practiCe." ken. After a while some joints appeared. Things really began moving when Ram ·•Remember~ some famous person," Fungus calls as I head down the corridor. showed us how Osric liked beer. Frankly, l think Ram was imitating some TV Whatever, I'd made up my mind to write about Ram. So what's the point writing commerciaL Anyway, Ram would tell Osric to go upstairs and bring down a shoe. about someone everybody knows blew it, like Hitler or Charles Manson or made Then Ram would give him a saucer uf beer. Pretty soon the place got sort of lit· it big like Pele or Odysseus. Sure, I wasn't sure what was going on between Ram tered with shoes and Osric was having a bit of trouble with stairs. Then some of and Eve Angelo, but whichever way, I knew Ram was going somewhere. the guys started going up and corning down with shoes in their mouths. It began Believe it or not, Ram was born in Egypt. That's where his father and mother to look like a half·price shoe sa!e at L.L. Bean's, Finally Osric collapsed and rolled met. His father's some kind of businessman and Ram's lived in all sorts of weird down the stairs. Ram pot him in a little nest we made for him under a table. places like Kathmandu, Upper Assam, Alabama. He learned to play soccer as a kid It was after that the gathering got a little out of hand. Duke Peavy got in a fight in Spain. His family moved up from the Caribbean to Adams first of June. Then with Andy Grimsby. A couple of Seuth Harbor boys went down and fell off the Ram's father went off to Europe. rocks and three more of us slid in hauling them out. Some weird neighbor came I met Ram at the beach where I rake seaweed and am the lifeguard, though by and said we were making too much noise and a few got sick and tore outside with the ocean being about zero degrees centigrade year 'round, about alii do is to flash the hash. Finally things began breaking up. Some left. 1 called home, pick up little kids who fall flat on their faces along the edge. Anyway, this day Eve woke up my dad and said l was spending the night. Ancly anrl Duke decided to Angelo comes walking up to my station with Ram. stay, too. Ram had curled up nn the floor beside Osric and gone to sleep. Eve introduces Ram who has this wicked-good tan and right off I can see Eve's I was in (air shape when I came down in the morning and stepped out into the attracted to him. So at first I guess !'m kind of hostile. My dad has this thing about backyard. There's this really beautiful blonde in jeans and sweater gently hauling old movies and we go to a lot. Eve looks like Sopl1ia Loren at her best. But Ram Osric by his front paws to a grassy spot by a woodpile. She doesn't even look at didn't come on strong and we got talking about soccer. Right away I could see me. l thought, oh god, we've killed him. She knelt beside Osric and began strok· why Eve was attracted to him. He was different from anyone we'd met before. ing his head. Tn a matter of days our whole bunch was gathering on the beach, .Werybody "Hi" I say, starting towards her. "I guess we -" Just then Osric's tail twitched listening to Ram. Not that he talked all the time. And not because he could speak and I knew he was alive. There wasn't any point saying anything more because several languages or was good-looking ellough to be on TV. A nice, friendly guy. she was looking at me, through me, like she was throwing a javelin. I did notice Right off you felt you were with someone who understood the scene, could take she was really -stacked. Finally I said someone was coming for us soon. It was ob­ charge, and thought really big. For instance, to jump ahead, there was that after· "ious we weren't going to get any breakfast there. noon right after school started. By then we'd become good friends, though I'll ad· I went back inside the carriage house and kicked Andy and Duke awake, sug. mit the way Eve always seemed to be with him was bugging me. gesting we'd better stay inside until our ride came. Finally my mother showed up. That afternoon during Study Hall, Ram and I got talking about what we were We came out and Ram's mother was still kneeliog beside Osric, who looked a lit· going to do after high school. Right off Ram said why don't we go down to the tie sad. We said thank you as we crossed to where my mother was waiting in the Counseling Office. station wagon but Mrs. Jones didn't look up. My mother gave me one of her in· Ms. Lysine Turgal and Coach Mastadon are the Guidance Counselors. This dictment looks and got out and went over to Mrs. Jones. They talked a hit and afternoon Lysine Turgal's there alone, her desk as usual littered with brochures. then my mother came back and sort of jerked the wagon around, not saying a All her bookshelves are piled with catalogues and she has posters like It's A Good word, not even after she let Andy and Duke off on the highway to hitch it home. Place TO Sfart and It Isn't.~4 Job, /l's Advenfure and ROTC and plane formations. Only when we drove into our garage did she explode. She has a son who's a sergeant up on some godforsaken airbase in northern "I don't know what kind of a monster your new friend, Rameses Jones is, but Maine. He comes down two or three times a year and talks to us and she's always you've certainly demonstrated you're no better! Getting that poor anima! drm1k! trying to get us to join up. We figure they p!'obably pay her ten dollars a head or That poor sick creature!'' something. No point my mentioning Osric wasn't the only one who got siCk. We make Portland, cruise a few bars listening to the groups but naturally not "1 suggest. you go up and have a talk with your father!" drinking, even though Ram had a fake I.D. that always seemed to work for him. My father is a columnist. Spends most mornings typing away up in his work· We didn't get around to eating and then it took forever to find Andy's friend's in room over the gar·age. And naturally, right off he asks me what kind of a merde· this crummy dorm. A party was going on but nothing to eat but potato chips. eating thing was that to do and I said I realized it and he said that after l finished They'd already run out of coke early. And we were in training1 so no beer. But at the beach every dav I was to plan on helpmg him with his stone walls, week­ somewhere past midnight Duke said the hell with it and we chipped in and sent ends included, H~'s re~Hy insane about bUilding stone waUs and our restored far~ !lam out. He came back in a while with two six-packs of Miller's Lite. mhouse is beginning to look more and more like a medieval castle. Still. I knew Actually Ram had barely a bottle. But it was late when we left and the three of !lam would be at the beach. us were asleep hy the time we hit the Interstate. All I know is that suddenly , Sure enough, that afternoon Ram appears. With Eve Angelo. I immediately got there's this merde·eating metallic screech and l'm pinned against the front seat depressed because Eve. hardly spoke to me. Ram tells how, after a long talk with with Andy sort of knotted on top of me. We had stopped. I hear Ram swearing his mother, who's nuts about dogs, he went out and bought her a collie puppy and Duke moaning he'd broken both legs. Andy groaned and said he was prob· and they'd made ilp. r said I wished I could have managed something like that ably ah·eady dead. r told him before he was would he get the hell off me. A door \vith my dad. swings open and Andy and ! spill out. There's this wet stuff running down my "You learn to deal with people, Christy." face. Then all of a sudden there are hlue lights flashing and searchlights stream­ Eve gave him this ]ovely smile and already I'm worrying how he's going to deal ing across the face of this big ragged cliff which I recognize is where the 1nter· with her. state cuts through a hill hardly a hundred yards from the turnoff ·down into Still, 1 couldn't help admiring the guy. That afternoon there were hardly any Adams. V\'ell, l think, we aimost made it. kids faHing on their faces in the waves and Ram got going on the places he'd Hved. i\& it turned out none of us were really hurt. Ram showed the kind of a guy he In Egypt he'd climhed on the pyramids. Caught a shark off Haiti. And when they was by taking all the hlame, admitting he'd heen drinking Eventually he lost his were living outside of Paris- welL Ram's father is what he calls an entrepreneur driver's license for six months, even though he passed his breath test. All he'd and there was this big development he'd startedr swimming pools, tennis courts, done really was to fall asleep. His mother took away his fake I D. card for a security guards and so on_ Anyway.. during that time he'd seen Jn rea1 1lfe aH the month and he had to junk his car-~ \vhich \vas all it was anyway what '"'ith the Beatles, the Prince of Monaco and Sophia Loren. 1 said something about Eve. look­ cliff chewing on it for a while. But the worst thing happened the following Mon­ ing like Sophia Loren and for a change got a decent smHe from her. day when Coach :\1astadon in front of the whole squad. kicked the four of us off It gut so for a couple of weeks our whole gang gathered every afternoon hy mY the soccer team for a week. So we missed our first three games, of which we lost beach station. Of course Ram was the big attraction. But then one afternoon Ram two and tied one. Actually the only good thing to come out of it was that every announced he'd got this restaurant job in Boothbay and seeing he couldn't use his day for a while Eve kept asking how the cut on my head was coming along. But mother's car all the time had bought one of his own. We all went out to the park· by the time we rejoined the squad she was seeing a Jot of Ram between classes. It ing lot to have a look. was just about then that Fungus assigned our papers and I got to thinking maybe 'Good God, Ram!" Andy says. "If you'd told me I could've helped " even people who are doomed start off having things thC'ir way. "Helped?•· Ram. for a change, looked puzzled. A.ny~tvay, as far as soccer went, by the en·d of September, what with Ram's pla.Y· "That '75' Impala!'-· Duke snorted. "Rumor was o1d man Tompkins wa& going to ing we had aced the opposition and even Mastadon admitted .we'd make the Re~ use it for a mooring. How much you give?" gionals. Naturally Ram was still making it big- the lead in Our Town, first prize "Two hundred." Ram says. "So O.K., it's a bit beat up - but listen!'' in the Adams Prize Speaking. I was still thinking about how I'd write about Ram. He jerks open the door, slides behind the wheeL The engine catches instantly. He'd drawn Mediterranean Culture as his topic but said he hadn't even given it a There's this deep throbbing roar and a couple of gulls cruising overhead go thought. He was going to do ancient Egypt. "Hell, I was hom there," he said. "No screaming off. Ram s)ams it into gear, there's a cloud of dust and Ram's off problem." around the lot skids back to a stop and leaps out. Even as he does the beat-up The problem was/ for me, why hadn't he stayed there? Ram seemerl to be talk· sedan had changed, looking really powerful and cool like a Trans AM or a Cor­ ing with Eve more and more but when I mentioned it to her she said it wa.'i none vette. of my business. Which I suppose vvas true. But once in a while when f was really "Well, she doesn't sound had," Duke concedes. "If you have any trouble With depressed over the whole scene she'd come along in the· corridor and slip her her I can probably help you some." arm in mine. Like always l'd go funny all over. But another time she asked me Ram nodded and it was like a king giving special dispensation to one of his sub­ was I even going to college? !lam had applied for early acceptance at Harvard. I jects. said I knew about Ram. Who didn't? But I hadn't decided. Maybe I'd join the Mv dad_, after warning me against any more merde·eating tricks like getting Peace Corps in NepaL Eve just looks mad and walks off. dog~ drunk, finally let me off the rock piling. Ram seemed to like to stop by on his Anyway, hy the end of October we're in to the last week of our regular games, pvei1ings off. Sometimes \\:·c'd just sH around. My dad Hked to talk with R~m about no more games lost and the Regionals certain, the State playoffs possible. Naturally the places he'd seen. Other evenings Ram and l1 sometimes with Duke and Andy, Ram had beeome sort of a major hero, though thankfully he still acted like a nor­ would cruise around in Ram's car. For a while only little things went wrong with mal guy. Then disaster strikes again, this time for me, though it showed once the Impala, which Duke would fix. But then the problems got bigger.- more how Ram could handle things. One evening ln Brunswick we come out after HThe Return of the Jedi" and both Friday in schonl Andy says his folks have gone to Boston and wouldn't be hack

rear tires are flaL Ram immediately said old man Tompkins had swore they were until late. Andy's girl, Elise. is coming over, and Duke and hi·s girl1 Ann Varney. practically new retreads. Anyway, Ram had never looked in the trunk. The spare He wants Ram and I to join 'em. Why don't I ask Eve? It will he just a mild gather­ is flat and no jack. And we were hroke. But Ram went off. found a garage. They ing. came, fixed our flats, gut Ram to sign something and vve were off. \Ve couldn't I track down Eve in drawing class but right off she said she couldn't like she figure how he managed it. didn't want to. I hunt down Ram, but no, he hadn't asked her. But there was Betty. "You learn to deal with people," Ram said. He'd ask her. I was sure enough at Eve so when I met Trixi O'Halloran .in the cor· It got so you just sort of figured out that no matter the situation; Ram would ridor I asked her. Trixi is a cheerleader. Nice kid but she tends to veil a lot somehow handle it. Of course there was the problem of Eve. But that was more Now I suppose nothing much would have happened if Duke's folks weren't hav- ing this feud with Ann Varney's folks, \vho live next door to them. Something my problenl than his. 1 mean1 she still came by to see me at the beach and things about a property line. But we'd been at Andy's only an hour or so listening to were more or less Hke they'd always been with us1 kind of warm and friendly. But she'd also gone nut with Ram a few times and when I tried to bring that up some t~ecords, Ram ·showing us some Haitian dance. Duke and Anne had stepped casually she'd sort of clam up. Anyway, there wasn't anything much I could do off into a side room. Suddenly there's this banging on the front door and In about it and the summer was mostly over. bursts Duke's mother. She's short, roundish and r mean, she was reaHy bombed. By that time Ram's Impala was down to eight per gallon and a quart of oit And Duke had toid us hm.v wlum she got going on coffee brandy that was the end. then, just into early soccer practice, a week before schoOl begins and regular sea~ "What's that Anne Varney doing with Duke1'' she shrieks. Or vice versa, I think. Out front a car horn starts blasting and a dog starts yelp~ son, disaster st1~lkes. ing. This stirs up Andy's terrier which he'd put in the cellar. Duke and Anne ap· To begin \-vith, this Friday, we'd had morning practice. Coach Mastadon had pear1 looking slight~v mus-sed. really leaned on us. Then a practice scrimmage with Samoset from up the coast. "Don't think I don't know what's been going on, mister~" She latches on to a We wer·e really beat but Andy pointed out it would be the last chance to get loose floor lamp for support. "Your father's waiting for you out in the truck." until soccer s.eason was over. So the plan w4s the fottr of us, Andy, Duke, Ram Duke just stares at her and tears start bubbling from Anne's eyes. The rest of and myself would go up to Portland, take in a couple of waterfront bands, lhen us hold stilL Ram shakes his head and mutters Something about it being sad, very dl'ive out the to the State University branch where Andy had friends. sad. Duke's mother glares at him, only it is like her face was put on crooked, She's head of this group, Chemica) Parents, who are in a panic about grass and booze \'Ve take off in a cloud of exhaust and I'm b~tting we don't even make it to Port· and how it's corrupting us. They have guidelines about \Vatching their kids' diets, land. Ram said he'd put over six hundred int1 her and was putting her up for sale weight, their eyes, searching their clothes~ and checking how many times they go eight hundred. Duke offer·s him a lmndrid and fifty to the john. They asked my folks to join hut my Dad told them one Inquisition had been enough. Duke finally says, quietly, ''I'm not going anywhere with you." "We'll see about that, mister!" She sort of revolves, knocking over the floor lamp and lunges for the doorway, screaming for Horace to come up. Duke's father must have been just outside because suddenly he's "in the room, plus their bea~le. He's a big guy with this mammoth gut. Actually not a bad guy, only he's obvtously annoyed, what with his wife screaming at him and the beagle tearing around trying to pick up a scent, the rest of us just staring. Duke dodges his father and slips out the front door. His father and mother and the beagle take out after him. For some reason Andy Jets his dog up from the cellar and we all crowd out on the front porch. Trixie starts yelling. I'm reminded of a riot scene from a Laurel and Hardy movie. The Widow's Duke's father is chasing Duke around and through their Chevy pick-up, Duke's mother grabbing at him as he passes. Cars were stopping. Neighbors lights going on. And up the road, blue lights flashing, siren wailing, comes Officer Bob in the Lament town cruiser. Andy's terrier and Duke's beagle get in a fight. Then fur some rea­ son Duke's mother charges up toward the house, which has this steep lawn. Half way up she slips and rolls all the way down to the pick-up, where Duke's father lifts her up and shoves her· in the cab, along with the beagle which he tears away What can you know of from the terrier. Duke fades into the night as Officer Bob takes over. my loneliness, waking ''It's sad, really sad;" Ram says. "Why don't you all go in and I'll go down and see in the first grey light, what I can do:" the odor of apricot Naturally we didn't go in. Ram went down to the pick-up and Officer Bob. Don't blossoms filling the ask me what he said. But in a little while Duke's folks drove off, followed by Of­ room but it's not the ficer Bob in the Ct'uiser, blue lights off. Ram came back up to the house, saying bees bumping against something about things being under control and that Officer Bob and Duke's my window -that wakes father belonged to the same Lodge. We all went. inside and Anne Varnev washed me, it's his voice, her face and put on some fresh make-up. After a while Duke showed" up. reaching into my sleep; I kept thinking what Ram had said it being sad, really sad. Later on 1 asked him, he's wet the bed again, did he mean about Duke's father and mother or the way they'd treated Duke and crying with shame Anne? of it, calling me to "You learn to deal with people, Christy," Ram says, "because life is sad quite a come help him, strip lot and who knows how any of us will turn out?" off the soaked sheets, Anyway, while the evening showed me again why I was right in doing my wash his belly, his paper on Ram and Fate, it was also a disaster because nalutallv Eve heard about thighs so I get up, my dating Trixi. She wouldn't even look at me when we passed in the corridors. start down the hall She always seemed to be talking with Ram, but when I made a crack or two, hop­ ing to find out what it was all about, he would start talking about the soccer play­ but there's no hall, offs that began that weekend. only this blank wooden We won the Regional Playoffs in two weekends. Naturally Ram was top scorer, door I've never seen though we really got it together as a team. Duke and Andy were great on defense before, pale blonde, and Duke only got in one fight. In the. only tight game, the final one, Ram scored varnished slick under the winning goal on a corner pass I got to him right in front of the net. my fingertips, a cold The weekend before Thanksgiving we went to the State Finals in our class. And glass knob; a squeak we won- easily. The town of Adams went crazy. Coach Mastadon announced as I twist and pull, Ram was world-class Olympic material. Lysine Turgal told Ram that State was and beyond, the faded giving him full athletic scholarship. Rarn said he was sorry but he'd just got his brown sofa, his green 'early acceptance' from Harvard. He'd told me about it the night before. recliner, the old brass He'd come by the house to borrow some of Dad's reference books. Our term lamp on the endtable, papers fur Fungus were due. and he'd found out he didn't know diddley squat but all adrift in about Egypt. He was going to have to whip something out in a hurry. Was mine this strange, dim room done? and his voice thins away I told him just about. I didn't go into details, still not wanting Ram to find out it into the moan of the was about him. Also because I was having second thoughts. Frankly, by then I refrigerator, the whine wasn't sure at aU whether Ram was fated to make it big. He could just as well of the electric clock. blow it. Before he left he told me he was asking Eve next day if she'd go to the Christmas dance with him. In spite of that, I finally decided Ram probably would No one is calling me. make it big, providing he lucked out and someone didn't shoot him from sheer Dead, my heart says, jealousy. dead, dead, dead, dead. Ram was talking to Eve on the school steps when I arrived next morning. She Eight years of it now. hadn't as much as spoken to me since that merde-eating debacle at Andy's. But l jusl sTand here, "Isn't it great, Christy," she says, "about Ram getting Harvard?" . for a while. What else "Sure is, Eve. You planning on going there too?'" can I do? And in an hour, Ram looks away and Eve just stares at me for seconds. at seven, the phone will "You're t'eal dumb, Christy, you know? I'm going to State. Why don't you?" ring, to pull me on into I stare at her. She was almost smiling, Ram mutters he has to see Fungus about the day - Emma, calling a late paper and takes off. to find out if l have "I thought you' tWo were - " lived through another "No Christy," Eve says. "Sure, I know he's going places but - " She gives my arm night, and she'll say, a tug and I feel myself go all over funny again. "You could go to State too, you "How did you sleep?" know." And I 'll say, "Well, not After a moment I said I'd give it some thought. We walked into the school so good." And then I'll together. I suggested she could come down to my house for dinner that evening. make myself some tea. I'd ask Ram, too. Eve said that was fine with her.

Gordon B. Clark Burton Hatten Perna quid Orono than.ks

in the worst of times, women less than crazy, more than sane have fine high times with women

less than lives, those times with women less than crazy, more than sane ' sustain life. thus women

live who live with men. women less than crazy, more than sane with anger, turn to speech with women

entrusting them more than their mates. women, less than crazy, more than sane, pained with foreboding, confide in women

the child may not survive. as women less than crazy, more than sane they come and go, know from women

to grow withal, list to women less than crazy, more than sane in the worst of times. women have fine high times with women.

Lee Sharkey Skowhegan

Photo by Kosti Ruohaama, Courtesy Black Star

No one loves children Children bob home from school Mariia like the Slavs and the Jews chick-like and a Gypsy mother The days of easy smiles at a garden gate When ·Yugoslavia was being bartered and grapes in the garden trellice pulls her straggling daughter away among three thrones were so short, soon gone And doesn't wonder And the aproned women of Rijeka Long ago, hurtful to remember why, why plump in their babushkas Like they do in America proffered fish and apples She who wailed in German, Italian when Jan, her man A dark bundle of nuns rolls down as the market required made the monthly crossing to the church This island of Krk nodded but once to Dubrovnik for vespers and with a wave of hands Her people are of great passion Cackling like schoolgirls still looked after the small things And flowers blossom in the arms In the last moments before silence of he who leaves and ascending hands Marija lives in "My House" She broke her leg when she was 78 So why didn 't she die Evening comes A/all when her heart was torn out Marija boils a pot of turnip and potato She's better now when those soldiers came on the woodstove But still murmurs, "noga, noga" and took her son On the television a march is played when the woodstove smolders for the Jugend, Jugend, Jugend She takes the stoker and probes the ashes at night Everything about them was dark for buried heat and cold Adriatic air crawls in The uniforms, the geometric movements Then looks out the windor and over the bay under the door and around the And that language where the sky is changing color worn window edges Impossible to whisper In the morning Stefan will toddle in She has seen so much Mdrija will hug his small warmth that she is beyond sharing it A Volkswagen tears along the village road for a longer moment An oxcart, loaded with sticks and hugs three-year-old Stefan It was a terrible dream: roses in his arms The animal, plodding, prodded when he comes to visit And as she hugs by the swaying baba Softly singing to the beast Robert T. Klose she cries Calling it, "my sweet" Orono

1. .. I Tunnels vocal version solo voice

with impassable trice, Sing, Blue Moon. Performance Notes: The first and closing and because under the pelvic laces, non-English sections are constructed from spend welcome, There are no fins! letters, phonemes, and words derived from antiqued with whiffet balk the letters of the word "tunnels. " The at nark quail stang; middle section is a linguistic investigation Alone, the inverted Cone which cock roose of of the first full stanza in English. The with small openings keep held. material sometimes ignites or releases an ran the instruments image or word, tangential flashes. Pro­ gliding through the antediluvian Then nounce fr.agments of the word as if declining phase; pronouncing "tunnels" with missing parts, because Making assent, i.e., say "els" as if saying "tunnels" nest egg pulpits opposed to demand, Ashen vast-dad? without the "tunn. " Said ready-made theory is USELESS. Pronounce u as you Alas! ut as suit Only mum shallow ust as boost that is why Snuffish thought blessing suns. setun as seaton the world of land Set apart for: the avoidance of intimacy. A void unsubtle, over-theatrical interpreta­ Daystars? tions. Except for Blue Moon, the sounds are spoken, not sung. Each dot equals a Bantam. Yes, passageways. one-second silence. Paltry. no deeper than heavy dew. T a s Potty

Are simply idiomatic words, E lu un nel tus. Under brimless coverings, which set caps for picking at flaws . Sulet en tu. T Ten u· tel us? N Ducking metallic salts not found outside, Els. with radiating plates Len uf at red flaps of flesh En Et hanging live in the water El un ust covered with droll little animals, ust un el. he said, Et. En ''The fourteenth letter plus twenty-nine ut len. and one half days equals its T mean density abbreviated M." s Elts tun lute stu tel, Eltun te L s nulet, T Newark! N Let tul netus use nelt luts luet, The Union of South Africa, Els. En Junes sutle sunet. Veer-oust - Schnell - pod - brabble!! Ten u tel us? Sluent un nel tenl, When will a light touch lut lu sten tutul, the two winged denerates No. en el tul u sui. infesting the escapement as pigeons? Ten u tel us? Nust ensu setun lenus? lide . lapse. Stuart S. Smith O.K. equivocating. Baltimore. Md .

Tunnels. Exist on the rough side of one's tongue, extending into · and a passed age. the caterwaul. with store shun, gave gills weight forth; Her glide-away organ only to caps zinc oonjeep, Succumbed to at eels tongue, binding shift-elapse; of cast shuck. which change-over Johnny withheld with his mutable business. Enter orange. of course all above board I tick nun then jaw kelp, yet. at cussing moons. The Dream

(Painted by Henri Rousseau, 1910)

In the dream In the left foreground Above her three brown monkeys a nude woman reclines in an umbrella tree and a robin on a ratan couch, a blue bird of Paradise, sit in an orange tree. cushioned in brown velvet. wings poised for flight, A young elephant watches Her hair falls in amber plaits looks back- while a snake charmer plays. over perfectly round white breasts perhaps startled Two female lions with golden nipples. by the presence of a pink garden hose lie baffled Giant pond lillies winding through the snake grass - at his feet on massive stalks her dark eyes Far away in a robin's egg sky lean to her; focused on someone a white winter moon burns. parakeet blue petals unfold not in the picture. to expose rust centers Other lillies bloom in mellowed magenta, Maudann Warren One pink bud pushes Portland toward the grasp of her extended hand. Doctor Heart

"Doctor Heart" is somewha.t expanded from the original scenarios used by com­ media actors. In places, 1 ha;e suggested motivation, or emotional reaction, for example. Its form is most like an eye-witness account ofa com media produced in the 15th century at the wedding of the Bavarian Duke William. This expansion, which you can find in Oreglia's The Commedia dell'Arle (Hill and Wang), makes the production more accessible to modern theatre groups. The solid block of prose seems quite dense and rather tough to follow at first. I have found, however, that if it is broken up into paragraphs or scene units, some actors tend to use the scenario as a bible instead of a framework for improvisation. As it is written, endings and be­ ginnings of scenes are flexible enough to suggest a continuous flow of action to the actors. The role of the director in Commedia dell'Arte is analogous to that of a good editor. Like an editor, he can shape, excise, guide, criticize or praise, but the actors in ensemble are the primary source of energy and creation in commedia theatre. In today 's theatre, for a director to relinquish creative control to the actors may be dif­ ficult, but it is necessary for the commedia.

J.P.

CAST: Dr. Heart - a charlatan Coviello -father of Lurette and Sacchetina Pantalone- a hypochondriac, father of Honestia Lelio - in love with Honestia Georgia - Lelia's friend Lurette - Coviello's daughter, a sister to Saccherina Puella - maid to Lurette and Saccherina Saccherina - Coviello's daughter, sister to Lurette Servette - maid to Honestia Honestia - daughter of Pantalone Zanni - Pantalone's servant

Seventeenth-century engraving of Pantalone by ]acquei Callot.

ACT I

Scene: A street with two houses.

Enter Lelia, reading. He sits. Enter Saccherina. She flirts with him. He ignores Dr.'s orders. He explams that the tiredness, heat and sweaiiness comes from fast her. She tries harder. He starts reading aloud - it is a geometry text. She asks arm swinging and overuse of the vocal chords. He must always move slowly and him what it is, he says love poetry, shuts the book and asks what she wants. She speak softly. Pantalone eagerly agrees. He asks for pills. Dr. Heart gives him ten wants to know more about him, she says. He starts to teach her geometry. She sourballs explaining that sourballs are for a sour disposition. There is one more pretends to be fascinated, gets bored, leaves. Enter Georgio. He asks Lelio to go thing, adds Dr. Heart. He must fall in love instantly. Pantalone thinks this is fishing with him. Lelio ignores him. He asks Lelio if he wants to play some ball. unusual but agrees. Dr. Heart says the cure won't work Without it. Pantalone Lelia ignores him. He asks what Lelio is doing. Lelio starts reading aloud from the asks how to do that. Dr. Heart explains that he must find a suitable young woman geometry text. Georgio is dumbfounded. Lelio pretends excitement. He gets up and then let nature take its course. Any young woman will do. He must write her and begins drawing geometric figures. A letter slips from the book. Georgia a letter. They argue over a fee. Pantalone ultimately offers his daughter_,. ­ seizes it. They battle for it. Georgio reads the letter. It is a letter to Honestia offet'· reasoning to himself that she will be one less mouth to feed. Dr. Heart says he ing marriage from Lelio. Lelio explains that it is the seventh letter he has_written will return in the morning for her. Dr. Heart exits. Zanni teases Pantalone, who and that she will not answer them. Georgia points out that it is unaddressed and can't raise his voice or swing his arms. Pantalone forces Zanni to stand so he can unsigned. Lelio says she ought to know who sent it anyway. Georgio offers to be beaten. Zanni discovers the letter. Pantalone snatches it and reads it. It is help him with a plan to get Honestia to answer. They exit. The letter drops out of perfect. All he needs is a name. He tells Zanni to hold onto it while he thinks of the book. someone. He exits. Enter Honestia and Servette. She sees Zanni with the letter. Enter Zanni, complaining about Pantalone's stinginess. He has been sent to the Zanni pretends to read it. She points out he can't read. She takes the letter - Dr. to get free samples for Pantalone's·illness. Enter Dr. Heart. Zanni continues to recognizes the handwriting and asks who it is to. Zanni says he hasn't decided corilplain. Dt\ Heart asks what the problem is, Zanni explains Pantalone has all yet. Enter Lurette and Saccherina. They read the Jetter. Each decides the letter is kinds of aches and pains. Dr. Heart explains he is a doctor and that he can help. she after recognizing the handwriting_. Ther both decide to accep_t and leave to Pantalone calls for Zanni from inside house. Pantalone finally enters in a rage. He prepare the wedding dress. Servette points out that Honestia knows the letter is beats Zanni for not getting his medicine. Dr. Heart .asks what the problem is. Pan­ to her . Honestia says she wants more than a letter - she wants to talk to him. All talone explains that he is tired all the time and he gots hot and sweaty. Dr. Heart he does is write letters. She sighs in despair and exits. Zanni takes the letter to examines him and says he can cure him for a fee, but only if he will follow the Pantalone. ACT I

Pantalone enters with Zanni holding the letter. He is going to call on Coviello and see if his old neighbor can supply him with someone with whom he can fall in love. Coviello enters. Coviello is puzzled by Pantalone's behavior - soft speech, Samuel Sewall Sails for Home slow actions etc. Panatlone explains the Dr.'s advice. One of Coviello's daughters would he fine. He explains that he would do the same for Coviello if Coviello were (Two sonnets from a sonnet sequence) ill. Besides that, he is willing to pay a small amount for the. privilege of falling in love with one of them. Coviello agrees but asks which one. Pantalone isn't sure. Coviello commands both to step out. He explains the situation. They ask how rich he is. He responds· very. How old? Very. They both want to marry him. They Editors ' Note: Samuel Sewall (1652-1730) fight. Pantalone urges them on. Lurette wins. Pantalone pays Coviello who exits was a contemporary of the Mathers and, among other things, a merchant skipper. His counting the money. Saccherina goes inside sneering at Lurette. Lurette waits 56-year Diary is rich in social observation of for Pantalone to say something. Pantalone explains the Dr.'s prescription. He asks early New England. her what to do first. She makes him do ridiculous things, explaining that he must do these things to show he has fallen in love. Pantalone falls exhausted. She exits, telling him to write her a love letter. He exits to put her name on ihe top of the letter he'd found. "As weary Pilgram . .. Enter Georgia and Lelio. Georgia proposes various ideas to Lelia about how he Blesses himself to think upon can win his love. Georgia finds out that Lelio hasn't talked to her. He persuades his dangers past and Ira valles done . .. " Lelio to try that first. Georgia knocks. Enter Honestia. Georgia tries to get Lelia to talk to he r . He fails. He tries to act as a go-between. Honestia is at first amused, (Anne Bradstreet: Longing for Heaven) then disgu sted. She exits just as Lelia gets his courage up. Enter Dr. Heart. He asks what the trouble is. Georgia explains. Dr. Heart says what he needs is practice in talking with young women. Any young woman will do. En ter Lurette. Dr. Heart asks her to ·help in a matter of life and death. She agrees. Dr. Heart .instructs Lelio. Lelio parrots what the Dr. says hut immediately falls into describing a geometry problem when Dr. Heart stops. As they en­ XII courage him, enter Pantalone. He overhears and becomes jealou&. He demands To Mrs Martha Oakes that Lurette explain what is going on. Lurette explains that .she was going to his "Words . .. written only inked paper bee.'' house to eXplain what duties her new daughter must undertake. She explains that as Pantalone's wife, she must set strict rules for Honestia. Dr. Heart explains that Honestia won't be there long, as he is going to marry her an d that soon she Madam, I write to persuade you might be a grandmother. Lurette is outraged . She is too young to be a grand· mothei'. She exits. Enter Saccherina. The Dr. asks her to help. She flirts with Lelia. to be sensible: for New England Pantalone scratches out .Lurette's name on the letter and writes in Saccherina. is a cleaner country than Lelio won't talk with her either. Pantalone offers her the same terms as Lurette . ever you were in before. To She ignores the m and flirts with Georgio. Exit Georgia and Saccherina followed disdain it filtpy is a sort by Pantalone. The Dr . pronounces Lelio incurable and goes off to prepare for the of Blasphemy which, as proceeds wedding. from your mouth, must needs I Enter Honestia and Servette. Lelio explains to Servette the Dr.'s wedding plan. defile you. write this not Honestia faints into Lelia's arms. Lelio is confused. He drops her and exits. Cur· to upbraid, but to admonish you tain. and pray God commands you freedom from provocations. But eyes should show you, your heart know, true ACT III joy in what you would despise. Enter Zanni. He bemoans his fate as an underpaid servant of Pantalone - he is beaten daily to boot. Enrer Lelio. He tries to find out from Zanni why Honestia fainted. Zanni proposes ridiculous reasons. Finally Zanni explains that Honestia is in love with him · Zanni pretends that idea is just as foolish as the others. Lelio XV doesn't believe it. Enter Servette. She be rates Lelio for his cowardice and tells him Becalmed on the Kennebeck that if he is brave he would tell Honestia that he loved her. Lelio says that he can't do it - he tried but it doesn't work. Enter Dr. Heart. He asks wha t the p m blem is "And in God's Garden saw a Golden Tree. , and is told by Leliu. Dr. Heart asks him if he can explain his feelings in other te rms. Lelio says he can use geometry. Dr. Heart prescribes geometi'Y as the cure and asks for his fee. Lelio is broke. Dr. Heart says neve r mind, to consider it a gift Beclamtd. I go ashore on because Dr. Heart is getting married. He describes Honestia. Servette is dis­ t he Small Point side. A settlement, gusted. Dr. Hea1't exit s in high spirits. Leli o practices geometry to one side. Ser· rotted down, had signed its intent vettc gets Zanni to agree to pretend to be Honestia. Zanni exits to get ready. with apple trees. All buildings gone. Servette calls Honestia, who enters. Lelio addresses her in terms of geometrv. Loon birds, silent, dive to meet They agree to run away and b ecome congruent and exit. I;:nter Coviello, D·r. the flooding tide. All about me Heart, Lurette, Saccherina, Puella and Pa ntalone. Coviello will perform the maiTiagc faithful, abandoned, fruitful trees · • 0 ceremony - it, is to be a double wedding - Dr. Heart and Honestia, Lu rette and abide. Twisted brier, berries, defeat Pantalone. Lurette announces she will not go through with it because she doesn't each other as they fight to rise. want to be a grandmother. Pantalone says he prefers Sacchel'ina anyway. Panta­ Lost apples fruitful! still - Laus Deo! lone exits briefly to get Honestia. Enter Pantalone and Zanni in disguise. Dr . Heart Man and not the tree denies is revolted by Zanni. Enter Georgia. He announces Honestia's marriage to Lelia. Paradise. A butterfly slowly Pantalone attacks him as a wife-stealer. He is restrained by Coviello. Lurette and unfolds. From rank leaves passion flies, Saccherina both make a play for Georgia. He says he prefe rs to remain single if a greedy, gorging worm surprised. Lhat is his choice. Dr. Heart offe rs to take both. Thev discover his isn't rich and refuse. Enter Honestia and Lelia, wedded. Pantalone is fu rious because he will have to pay the Dr., Coviello is furious because he still has his two daughters. Robert M. Chute Freeport CURTAIN

John Potter Camden House Painting Modern Romance

In the heat of midday, At one a.m. a pang of loving comes; the green shadows, dark and swaying, The hour you wake and find yourself alone. become paradise. You grit your teeth, with elegance you dine: Someday one of the trees French onion soup and California wine. will call me over for a conversation Post-coital snack for two a meal for one' when my mind is doser to roots The recipe from Cosmo newly-tried. reaching the center of things. On memories and Ruby Cabernet Your belly swells until you're satisfied. All the clapboards have been in touch with nobody knows how many winters Too rushed to cook, y ou find forgotten steak: Today in the midsummer sun Your mother guaranteed it would impress. the paint dries quickly But knowing how he wolfed it down and left, giving each wall a new viewpoint It only brings intestinal distress. but never hiding what was beneath. You're sick all night, for days you fee/the burn: Perhaps the steak was finally too old. Our neighbor f rom across the road You 'd eat it still, on principle alone: comes to talk about deer, his friend's dog In your house, nothing's simply left to mold. and housepainting. His memories are his alone and he is driving in the motor pool Your shelves stripped bare, it's time to venture forth; across occupied Germany, dreaming of jet black hair, At Heartland the selection overwhelms. the Alps, and some love, remote, You ply your cart until there's no more room: rising every few months. Convenience foods to heat up and consume. My memories, too, are already with me. Enough good home cooking for awhile: Down the road A can of everything to get you by. new ones grasp, take hold Fresh tastes to tempt a budding appetite. and are born. Try one by one and find the one that's right. Stusrt Kestenbsum J,ennifer Lyons Portland Porilsnd

The Skywriter's Wife's Lament We can't see for the clouds KENNEBEC: A Portfolio of and he can't for being in the smoke Maine Writing but he goes up any way - This is Kennebec's eighth year of says he feels it, in his gut like, publication. Because of the amount and when he levels oul of a good round o q11ality of writing, this issue is expanded or-noses up at. to 24 pages, with our usual run of 5,000 copies. More than half of the writers are If only he'd wait for it to clear appearing for the first time. In this so we could see endeqvor to bring Maine writers to the and make it something we know, attention of a wide public we are sup· ported by the University of Maine at Shop Klein's, or Pepsi Cola, Augusta. we'd wait for him to dot the i. Deadline for submissions for next year: But as it is it scares me -'- 9115184 - 1211184. I keep .thinking someday he won't come back (he wouldn't either, if his tanks were bigger). Editors: Gordon Clark, Terry Plunkett Days and days he lands, his tanks all blown; Assistant Editor: Carol Kontos I don't know what he does: Typesetting: The Comp Shop gibberish, his name, Cover photo: Courtesyyf Don Johnson • he calls it praise! ------Sylvester Pollet East Holden Non-Profit Organlzetlon U.S. POST AGE PAID Augusta, Maine 04330 PERMIT NO. 317 50 Is UNIVERSITY OF MAINE AT AUGUSTA as lonely as the Mooselookmeguntic Rivei

Jo McDougall Fayetteville, Arkllnsas